The day this engineer (re)learned the importance of a liberal arts education

April 4, 2023

I’ve been teaching engineering at the University of St. Thomas for about fourteen years now. St. Thomas is what we commonly refer to as a “liberal arts college.” For fourteen years I’ve recited the standard themes promoting the value of a liberal arts education, claiming our engineers know how to write, and our engineers know how to think. And they do, but did I really believe all of these liberal arts courses were necessary? Or did I secretly harbor resentment that some of these liberal arts courses were crowding out additional technical courses that I wanted taught?

Even as I myself attended workshops on “fostering curiosity” and added modules on “empathic design” to my engineering courses, did I appreciate the relevance of what my colleagues were doing in their history, fine arts, theology, or language courses? I’m not sure if I did, until today.

You see, this semester, I decided I wanted to improve my French. I was thinking about fluency. I was thinking about regaining all the French grammar I once learned but long ago forgot. I was thinking about what a kick it would be to visit France again and to effortlessly ease into conversations with the locals. (Well, at least, less awkwardly stumble through conversations with locals.) That was my goal: speak French a little better. Nothing more.

It hadn’t occurred to me what else I might learn taking a French class.

The course I decided to take is Advanced Oral and Written French. Currently we are working on “dissertation”—i.e. the traditional, and oh, so French, art of debate. Our debate topics have been: climate change, energy, and technology, along with the societal and cultural effects of global warming, technological advancement, etc. I’ve been learning a lot of new vocabulary. I can now say wind turbine, hurricane, and surveillance in French. But, more importantly I’ve been thinking about energy and climate change in ways I had not before. Not because I was completely ignorant, but because it had been a long time since someone had formally challenged me to look at both sides of these issues. 

Truth is, I’m kind of a news junky. And probably more of an independent thinker than most. Still, it’s hard to find news reporting anymore that isn’t sensationalized and one-sided. I haven’t worked as hard as I should to make sure my attitudes and opinions aren’t just a reflection of the attitudes and opinions coming at me through my radio stations and news apps of choice. Even a scientist like me can become complacent on topics we’re not actively researching. And how often do we Americans engage socially in debate? It’s rather taboo, isn’t it?

Well, not in French class. Today we were asked to break into small groups to discuss, in French, our personal feelings on the article we had all read about rising sea levels and quickly disappearing land mass in the Louisiana Bayou. My group weighed questions like, “Does the action of one person really make a difference?” and “How can we motivate an individualistic society to work for the common good?” We stumbled through our French, not knowing the right word for “reusable” and a whole host of other basic ideas, but as we talked, I was suddenly struck by how amazing the conversation was. There, I was, age 56...I know I’m a non-traditional student because I had to subtract my birth year from the current year to come up with that number...but there I was, age 56, talking with my twenty-something classmates, Annabel and Catherine, about our responsibilities to each other and to the planet. I was thrilled.

It seems schmaltzy to say now, I felt the importance of a liberal arts education in that moment.

Were we incredibly articulate? Hardly! I’m lucky if I can describe what I ate for breakfast in articulate French. But we were discussing the issue from multiple perspectives and we were thinking! We were thinking in ways I hope all my engineering students will be thinking here at University of St. Thomas and well into the future: How does this project impact the community? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this new technology? How do I respectfully work with different stakeholders? How do I foster collaboration? How do I choose a path forward when there are 1,000 choices and none without pitfalls?

The University of St. Thomas’ stated mission is to “educate students to be morally responsible leaders who think critically, act wisely, and work skillfully to advance the common good.” I think of our mission often in my own teaching as I strive to teach my engineering students not only the technical content, but also the context for it. Today, I felt deep gratitude for the contribution of all my colleagues in the liberal arts for their partnership in this goal.  I imagine I knew the impact of my liberal arts classes back when I was a college student, but like my French grammar, my memories of the content had faded. I hope that I will not soon forget what I re-learned today about the important conversations happening in classrooms all across my campus, and hopefully every on other campus that claims to engage in higher learning.

The liberal arts education our engineering students receive is not a bonus add-on to the technical content, it is essential to the engineers and citizens that they will become.