Fides Quaerens Intellectum

In his book The Idea of a College (1959), educator and Harvard chaplain D. Elton Trueblood identified the American cultural assumption regarding the purpose of higher education:

“Millions, when they think of college, think primarily of one thing—how can the student be prepared most perfectly or most quickly to do the work associated with his intended vocation or profession?  Why not, many ask, proceed at once to the serious business of technology, which is the distinguishing mark of our age, leaving out all the decorations and fancy courses that are a waste of time” (95)?  

Almost fifty years later, Trueblood’s analysis is still accurate.  Students and parents often shop for colleges based only on what they believe a particular four-year degree will do to usher them as quickly as possible into some sector of the marketplace.   Granted, healthy ambition is a good thing that parents want (and ought!) to encourage, and a four-year degree in this day and age is a pretty much a requirement for anyone who desires to turn healthy ambition into productive work. 

The problem with this approach is that, all too often, college shoppers tend to be concerned only about the degree to which a B.A. or a B.S. will help them in attaining that all-important first job.  Careerism has, in a real sense, hijacked the deeper purposes of higher education.  The age-old question that has been forgotten in this higher education buyer’s market is “How will this four-year education form my character, as well as my intellect?”   A liberal arts education, and specifically a Christian liberal arts education, answers this question by eschewing careerism and instead proceeds intentionally with new knowledge projects in all disciplines not just for the sake of preparing students for their first job, and not even for the sole purpose of the pursuit of truth (as important as that is).  Faculty and administration at the Christian liberal arts college believe that these are worthy goals, but they are not goals in and of themselves…rather they are means toward the end of forming a student’s character properly so that the student can discern God’s call upon his or her life.  A college or university guided by the Christian world and life view holds that there ought to be no disparity between the formation of one’s character and the formation of one’s intellect and “skill set” for the sake of a profession. Why did Trueblood believe these concerns ought to be central to the purposes of going to college?  Because he understood that man “is worthy of respect, not because of what he is, but of what he represents, and what, under God, he may become” (30).