American Universities Abroad

The Leadership of Independent Transnational Higher Education Institutions

Ted Purinton, Jennifer Skaggs

• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781617978463
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Multicultural Education

Across the globe, American-style and liberal arts universities are being established. From the first, the American University of Beirut, established in 1866, to the liberal arts institutions being established in Saudi Arabia, Ghana, and elsewhere in the twenty-first century, there is a clear sense of the global desire for the American approach to higher education as a way of counteracting traditional, more narrowly defined university educations. However, these universities operate in a distinctive dynamic that must learn to bridge one culture with another, and leadership of such institutions must by its nature focus on such complexities and tensions. Throughout the chapters of this book, this unique element of these universities will be better understood through the stories and experiences as presented by their presidents, provosts, and other academic leaders.

1

Achieving Liberal Arts Education Transnationally: Where From, How, and Where To?

Richard A. Detweiler

It seems a great curiosity that something called ‘liberal arts’ should be an approach to education of great and, indeed, growing interest globally. Whether education in the tradition of the liberal arts is described as an ‘American-style’ approach to higher education or whether it is attributed to ancient Greece, the interest seems equally puzzling. This is true particularly since the term, in public perception, is so often understood to be either a political ideology (‘liberal’) or a focus on the study of impractical subjects (‘arts’). As a result, in many national contexts, this tradition is referred to as ‘American’ or ‘American-style’ education, a description intended to communicate that it is different from what is typical in one’s own country and that it has a pragmatic character.

Where did this approach to higher education come from, and what is its fundamental character?¹ The seeds of liberal arts education were planted in ancient Greece. With a purpose of educating the type of leaders needed at that time, its initial focus was on military training. As city-states matured and warfare became less a daily concern, gymnastics was added to the content of the curriculum as symbolic conflict became a more frequent substitute for real combat. The study of the ‘muses,’ meaning culturally valued aspects of poetry, music, and art, were added to this higher education since these military leaders were also expected to further the values of their society (Kimball 1995). Ultimately, areas of study included classical poets and writers, composition, mathematics, and music, followed by various areas of study with the “two that were most typical of advanced education [being] philosophy and rhetoric” (Marrou 1948, 186–87).

As ancient Greek civilization reached its pinnacle, higher education focused even more decidedly on those who were to be leaders of society. These prospective leaders were the ‘free’ people, in other words, men (never women) and not slaves nor foreigners. It was these prospective leaders who needed to be prepared to contribute in the most important ways to their city-states (Kimball 1995). Our contemporary use of the term ‘liberal arts’ for this educational purpose arises from the Latin liberalis which, in English, means ‘freedom’ since it was an education for those designated in that culture as ‘free’ people.

Thus, while there was a clearly shared purpose for this education, there was not agreement on its content apart from the fact that it was not specialized nor technical in character (Marrou 1948). It was understood “the Greeks did not formulate an unalterably fixed body of studies, seven in number” (West 2010, 6). To become leaders, some believed the content of study should involve the skills of oratory so their students could develop and deliver persuasive arguments in civic discourse; some emphasized the development of ideals of intellect and the pursuit of truth; and others focused on the development of traditional noble virtues (Kimball 1995).

Though the areas of study for a ‘liberal’ education were not consistent, the method of education was highly consistent. This approach to education invariably involved the direct intellectual engagement of the individual teacher with the individual student. Sometimes this occurred in so-called academies in which a number of students would come together at a single location to work with one or more tutors, and sometimes it involved the hiring of a teacher to become a tutor for a son in a family. The intensity of this education is indicated by the cost of providing it. In the fifth century bc the cost of this four- or five-year higher education was 10,000 drachmas. With one drachma equaling a qualified worker’s daily wage, this equated to about forty years of salary for the average person, so obviously it was only the wealthy elite who could afford it.

In the second century bc Rome conquered Greece, and like many other aspects of Greek culture, the Greek approach to education was appropriated by the Romans (Marrou 1948). This was made particularly straightforward because Greek teachers became Roman slaves, and they offered the same type of education to the rising generation of Roman youth who would become leaders. With the exception of gymnastics (the Romans of this time objected to the nudity characteristic of Greek gymnastics) the general, though inconsistent, content of Greek higher education characterized Roman higher education and consistently utilized the same student-focused methods, as had been the case in Greece.

The Roman Empire grew to its pinnacle and began its decline. In the fifth century ad, just decades before the demise of the Roman Empire, a North African, in what we now call Algeria, wrote an allegorical story in which the content of the liberal arts was, for the first time, defined. In “On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury” (in its English translation), Martianus Capella codified the liberal arts as the study of logic, rhetoric, grammar, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music (Stahl and Johnson 1977).

But as the Roman Empire fell, not only did Capella’s book fall into obscurity, but the ancient Greek writings upon which the subject areas were based were banned in 529 by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. Europe descended into its ‘dark’ age and most copies of ancient Greek writings were destroyed. The few remaining scholars of the classics took refuge in Persia, in the city of Jundhi-Shapur, at an academy in what is now western Iran where “they preserved these traditions, improved upon and added to them” (Nakosteen 1964, 17).

A hundred years later, in 636, Islamic forces conquered Jundhi-Shapur but preserved the academy, and it “flourished as an extensive intellectual reservoir having much influence on Islamic learning” (Nakosteen 1964, 21). Nearly two hundred years after that the great Islamic institution, the ‘House of Wisdom,’ emerged in Baghdad as a great cultural center with caliphs of that region placing a very high priority on having books translated into Arabic, including the writings of the great classical Greek philosophers and writers (Freely 2009). With its emphasis on the written word (Tibawi 1972), this was the beginning of the Golden Age of Islam (750–1150). Books of many languages were translated into Arabic, and new areas of Islamic inquiry and scholarship developed (especially in mathematics and the sciences, but also including philosophy and other humanistic disciplines). The educational experience was based on a close, personal relationship between the teacher and the student (Berkey 1992) and it was not unusual for the teacher to sit “on a low chair, with his students on the ground around him” (Dodge 1962, 20). Indeed, teacher–student relationships were sufficiently close that it was not unusual for the teacher to help financially support the student (Makdisi 1981).

So classical thinking was preserved and nurtured in the far east of the Mediterranean and then spread by Islamic scholars throughout North Africa and, in the eighth century, to the Iberian Peninsula (now Spain and Portugal as well as parts of France). Universities were founded, including al-Karaouine in Morocco (founded in 859) and al-Azhar in Egypt (founded in 970), as well as the Baghdad House of Wisdom and the University of Constantinople (University of Magnaura) during the ninth century. By the tenth century the city of Cordoba in Spain became a center of learning when its caliph established libraries as well as free schools, which “gave Cordoba a reputation for learning that spread throughout Europe, attracting Christian scholars as well as Muslims, not to mention the Jews who lived under Islamic rule” (Freely 2009, 107). The method of education throughout the Golden Age of Islam took many forms, ranging from the ‘Circle School’ in which students would often travel long distances to sit with a great teacher and hear and discuss his lectures, to formally constructed universities with fully residential learning environments including housing, kitchens, and medical care. Universities were privately supported and secular with a purpose of “public enlightenment” (Nakosteen 1964, 38).

Around 1000 ad, Pope Sylvester II learned of the Arabic translations of the ancient Greek works and requested they be translated into Latin. These translations, as well as translations of other Arabic scholarly works in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and more, flooded from the Muslim world into Europe. Among these documents was Capella’s book containing a definition of the seven areas of study for the ‘liberal arts’ (logic, rhetoric, grammar, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music) and it “became among the most popular books in Western Europe” (Kimball 2010, 55).

With the ancient writings once again available and Capella’s framework of liberal arts study in place, European higher education institutions were founded in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in Italy (University of Bologna), France (University of Paris), and England (University of Oxford). While the typical founding roots of institutions in this era were either in law (for example, Bologna) or theology (for example, Paris), the course of study was based on the mastery of Capella’s seven disciplines (Taylor 1911), followed by advanced degrees in theology, law, or medicine. This higher education invariably occurred in the context of a deliberately created educational community where students and faculty lived in close relationship, and instructional methods involved intellectual give-and-take among teachers and students.

For the first time, then, the content of a liberal arts education was defined and its methods of instruction were consistently applied throughout European higher education. This was not an education designed for every person but for those who were fluent in the educated (not vernacular) language of Latin and who were able to afford the cost of four or more years of living and learning at a university. For several centuries, the character of higher education, in the tradition of the liberal arts, remained relatively stable.

Four key events, beginning in 1646 and culminating in 1820, fundamentally shaped and reshaped the distinctive character of education as it is now practiced around the world.

First, in 1646, as English immigrants began moving to (or invading) North America, approximately one hundred graduates of Cambridge and Oxford settled in Boston. They sought to recreate English society in this new place by educating clergy and also creating disciplined societal leaders (Rudolph 1990) by “preparing men of refinement and culture, those destined to positions of responsibility and leadership” (Lucas 2006, 104). This was, as the case in England, an education designed for the ruling class. Thus, it was neither technical nor specialized, but included the accepted areas of liberal arts study as well as the discoveries of Islamic scholars and Europe’s subsequent scientific revolution (Lucas 2006). Mimicking the Oxford and Cambridge models, it was based around a residential college experience which involved a close living and learning environment. A total of nine such colleges were founded in the colonies during the ensuing 125 years.

Second, in 1776, the American Revolution occurred, and while not clear at the time, it had an essential role in defining a uniquely American development in higher education. But this development is the fourth of our key events, and before describing it the third event needs to be explained.

Third, around 1800, a Prussian philosopher named Wilhelm von Humboldt began advocating for educational reform. The King of Prussia appointed him as the head of the education directorate, and he brought change to every level of education and standardized its purpose and content. As part of this project, in 1810, the University of Berlin (later renamed Humboldt University in his honor) was started with a newfound purpose. With the rise of the nation-state, its fundamental purpose was to strengthen the success of the state by training bureaucrats to run systems effectively and efficiently and by developing new inventions to contribute to the economic vitality of the state. With this new purpose, the study of the liberal arts and its disciplines was eliminated as irrelevant or unneeded, and was replaced with technical and specialized education. Methods of instruction now emphasized the mastery of the facts to be known by the effective bureaucrat or productive specialist. This state-serving approach was quickly adopted throughout much of Europe, and since this was also the age of European colonial empires, this model of higher education was exported globally and defined the nature of higher education in virtually every region in the world. Indeed, “European powers felt compelled to educate members of the native elites to conduct the business of empire for them” (González and Funie 2014, 1).

The one exception to the successful exporting of the Prussian approach to higher education was the creation of an American approach to education. This is the fourth key event in the conclusion to this brief history. Higher education in North America, beginning in 1646, had been designed to follow European beliefs about educating the ruling class. These were the rich and powerful, who also were the faithful servants of the kings and queens of the time. The American Revolution made this an untenable purpose, yet the Prussian model was little better. In 1828, fifty years after the American Revolution and eighteen years after Humboldt’s invention, the faculty of Yale University issued a major report which came to be known as the Yale Report of 1828. In it, great doubts were expressed about both the purpose and methods of higher education in Europe, and the European model was contrasted with the purposes need...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Understanding American and Liberal Arts Universities Around the World
• 1. Achieving Liberal Arts Education Transnationally: Where From, How, and Where To?
• 2. “. . . To Save Us All”: Lessons from the American University in Cairo, a Community of Learning in Revolutionary Times
• 3. AUN as a Development University—Preparing Nigerian Students for the Challenges of the Country
• 4. Identity and Mission in a Pluralistic Nation: The American University of Beirut
• 5. Study Abroad, Abroad: Leading the Global Liberal Arts in Paris
• 6. American University of Sharjah: A Young Institution Aiming to Become a Research University
• 7. BISLA and ECOLAS: Hubs of the Liberal Arts in Europe
• 8. Should Higher Education Be Vocationalized? The Role of Liberal Arts Education in Hong Kong
• 9. Trends in Liberal Arts Education in Japan
• 10. From Hardship to Success: Building the Lebanese American University
• 11. Achieving Diversity and Excellence without the US Infrastructure
• 12. Experiential Learning, Cheese, and Chocolate: Connecting Curriculum and Place
• 13. Greek Lessons: The American College of Greece in the Greek Economic Crisis
• 14. Greece’s Constitutional Provision on Private Higher Education and ACG’s Open University Affiliation
• 15. Forman Christian College: The Rebirth of a Liberal Arts University in an Islamic State
• 16. Adapting the Liberal Arts Model to Create Ethical and Entrepreneurial Leaders for Africa: The Case of Ashesi University College, Ghana
• 17. IQRA “READ”: Making the Case for Effat Liberal Arts Education
• 18. Merging Local Customs with the Liberal Arts in Central Asia
• 19. Adapting Liberal Arts and Sciences as a System of Education
• 20. America and American Universities Abroad: Toward a Public Diplomacy Research Agenda
• 21. New Perspectives on Legitimacy for American and Liberal Education: From Marginalization to Disruptive Innovation?