June 25, 2013
Faculty member’s interview with higher education expert reveals importance of liberal arts in changing economy
Associate Dean of the Faculty Davis Schneiderman and Vicki Gerentes ’14 interviewed the editor at large for the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeff Selingo, about his new book, College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students. The interview was published in the Huffington Post on June 25.
Schneiderman said he became intrigued by Selingo’s book after hearing him speak at a conference in May. He read the book and decided to request an interview because he wanted to “engage with the text and its author in the same way we teach our students: I had questions, so I asked.”
One question he posed asked Selingo to explain why he would defend a liberal arts education.
“One thing I realized in reporting the book is that the skill sets students develop in the liberal arts are incredibly important to a future world…where the jobs of tomorrow just don’t exist today and the jobs of four years from now that everyone’s training for, today, might already be gone,” Selingo said.
Read the published interview here.
Schneiderman formulated the questions for the interview, and Gerentes assisted in the transcription. Due to space constraints, about 2,500 additional words from the interview were not published.
“That extended information—much of it provocative—may find a home later on,” Schneiderman said.
News Contact
Kellie Doyledoyle@lakeforest.edu
847-735-6177