s a high school student, Angela Brady ’03 loved art. She saw it as a way of communicating and educating others. She also loved scientific concepts, especially the abstract ones.
Brady visited art schools but felt there was a void in the lack of science offerings. She knew she wanted to be able to explore various disciplines and discover new skills and interests. That’s when she made her decision to attend Albright College and pursue her dream – a career in medical illustration.
“Both the disciplines of art and science encourage and inspire creativity, alternative ways of thinking and problem solving,” Brady says. “To me, it’s only natural that art and science go hand-in-hand.”
Albright has a long history as a liberal arts institution – 150 years long. What does it mean to be a liberal arts institution? It means to educate broadly, stimulate the mind and engage lifelong learners. It means to encourage students to look at the world more expansively, think more critically and make connections between different disciplines. It means to educate the whole person.
“The liberal arts education deepens our understanding of what it means to be a human being, and helps our students to discover within themselves powers and gifts that they may not fully understand when they begin their educations,” says President McMillan.
With the rapidity at which the world has changed, it’s no wonder that a Department of Labor report projects that 80 percent of the children entering kindergarten this year will eventually have jobs that don’t even exist today. In this type of world, a liberal arts education is what will equip students with the skills to cope with and adapt to this change.
The Core
Albright’s general studies requirements best express what the liberal arts is all about, says Andrea E. Chapdelaine, Ph.D., acting vice president for academic affairs. English composition, foreign language, humanities, natural and social sciences, fine arts, quantitative reasoning and an interdisciplinary course – “This is what we do,” says Chapdelaine. “That’s why it’s called ‘the core.’”
Students don't always understand initially why they must take courses that aren’t in their area of concentration, but they eventually see the benefit, says J. Dale Yoder, Ph.D. ’57, professor emeritus of history. During his 39 years of teaching, many of his students have gone into a course not sure why they had to take it, he says, but they come out saying that “although history wasn’t their major, it was their pleasure.”
Although it will be reviewed this fall, Albright’s core has remained mostly unchanged in the last several decades. However, an important addition came in 1975. As a result of interdisciplinary (IDS) courses being offered during Interim session at that time, faculty voted to add an IDS course to the core requirements. Today, 39 team-taught IDS courses are offered ranging from “Uncertainty and the Creation of Knowledge” to “The Political Psychology of Mass Hate” to ”Food and Culture.”
Marsha Green, Ph.D. ’63, professor of psychology, and Mary Jane Androne, Ph.D., professor of English, taught the first IDS course in 1974. Thirty-one years later, the course “Sex Roles” is still being taught.
“The flexibility that Albright offers is unique.
You not only receive an education,
you receive the education you want.”– Angela Brady ’03
According to Androne, it was at a time when the latest wave of the Women’s Movement was sweeping the U.S. and Europe and students were being challenged by the changes active feminism was bringing to public institutions and private lives. “There’s always been a lot of interest in the course,” says Androne. “There’s always been a lot of debate and argument.” While the issues may have changed from topics such as Title IX and Roe v. Wade to gay marriage and the paradox of women in combat in countries where most women are veiled, there’s still a lot of debate, she says.
The Cultural Experience, requiring students to attend lectures, plays, concerts, panel discussions, art exhibits and other cultural events, was added to the core in 1979. Freshman Forum, a program for first-year students that provides background on employing an interdisciplinary approach to education, as well as a service-learning component, was added in 1999 as the Gateway seminar and was changed to Freshman Forum in 2004.
But the biggest curricular change, says Yoder, are the options that are available to students today.