1.4 经典演讲视频文档-2.pdf

00:12 College presidents are not the first people who come to mind when the subject is the uses of the creative imagination. So Ithought Id start by telling you how I got here. 00:23 The story begins in the late 90s. I was invited to meet with leading educators from the newly free Eastern Europe and Russia. They were trying to figure out how to rebuild their universities. Since education under the Soviet Union was essentially propaganda serving the purposes of a state ideology, they appreciated that it would take wholesale transformations if they were to provide an education worthy of free men and women. Given this rare opportunity to start fresh, they chose liberal arts as the most compelling model because of its historic commitment to furthering its students broadest intellectual, and deepest ethical potential. 01:10 Having made that decision they came to the United States, home of liberal arts education, to talk with some of us most closely identified with that kind of education. They spoke with a passion, an urgency, an intellectual conviction that, for me, was a voice I had not heard in decades, a dream long forgotten. For, in truth, we had moved light years from the passions that animated them. But for me, unlike them, in my world, the slate was not clean, and what was written on it was not encouraging. 01:56 In truth, liberal arts education no longer exists -- at least genuine liberal arts education -- in this country. We have professionalized liberal arts to the point where they no longer provide the breadth of application and the enhanced capacity for civic engagement that is their signature. Over the past century the expert has dethroned the educated generalist to become the sole model of intellectual accomplishment. (Applause) 02:28 Expertise has for sure had its moments. But the price of its dominance is enormous. Subject matters are broken up into smaller and smaller pieces, with increasing emphasis on the technical and the