This is a copy of President Elaine Tuttle Hansen's Letter to the Editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com).

To the Editor:

William G. Durden's discussion of "The Liberal Arts as a Bulwark of Business Education" (The Review, July 18) deals with a provocative issue that we have been discussing here at Bates College. Our experience, however, suggests a somewhat different view of the relationship today between liberal education and the business sector.

Durden begins by indicting colleges and universities "with liberal arts at their core" for not serving "as an improving, enlightening force" against the evils of corporate America. He alleges that faculty members condemn and embarrass "countless" students who choose business careers, and he charges that academic leaders ignore a more "useful" version of the liberal arts promulgated by the founders of American higher education and promote an elitist, "separatist" perspective.

Several aspects of this argument are puzzling to me. In over two decades at Haverford College, and now as president of Bates, I have worked with many alums who have prominent careers in finance and industry, and I have met none who were abashed by their business success. Proud of the fact that they have been able to bring intellectual and ethical virtues fostered by their undergraduate experience into corporate careers, they find time to help future generations through their philanthropy and volunteer efforts on behalf of liberal education.

While I too have been inspired by the visionaries who built places like Bates, careful study of their writings suggests that we must be selective in our reliance on them. Their vision of educating Americans to build a democratic society was and is noble, but their ideas about which Americans should receive this education were narrow.

Finally, when I look at my own institution and others like it, I cannot see the "separatist" ivory towers that Durden decries. Instead I find increasingly more emphasis on just the sort of things he calls for. Service learning, civic engagement, and preparation for leadership are hallmarks of Bates and many other liberal-arts colleges.

Rather than faulting liberal education for failing to prevent greed and corruption in corporate America, we need to do a better job of communicating what the chief executive officers who prefer to hire liberal-arts graduates already know: Although our expertise rests in academic disciplines, and our worth to society has much to do with the intrinsic human need to learn, we have many "practical" programs, and access to the broad learning achieved through a liberal education gives our graduates a realistic understanding of the complexity of the world and prepares them for lives satisfying to themselves and useful to others.

Elaine Tuttle Hansen
President
Bates College
Lewiston, Me.