Experiencing diversity: What can we learn from liberal arts colleges?

Abstract

In many ways, liberal arts colleges seem uniquely well suited to provide high quality undergraduate experiences. Their relatively small size ostensibly promotes student-faculty interaction and meaningful relations with peers. Many have salient missions—some because of denominational roots, others because of curricular arrangements—that are thought to leave distinctive imprints on their students’ attitudes and values (Clark 1970; Kuh et al. 1991; Townsend, Newell, and Wiese 1992). According to Richard Hersh (1999, 192) these structural and cultural features make liberal arts colleges “sui generis, themselves a special kind of pedagogy.” That is, they emphasize a range of intellectual and practical knowledge, skills, and competencies and create the conditions inside and outside the classroom that help students integrate and bring coherence to their learning. This is supported by some pretty convincing empirical evidence. Decades of studies show that residential liberal arts colleges “produce a pattern of consistently positive student outcomes not found in any other type of American higher-education institution” (Astin 1999, 77; see also Pascarella and Terenzini 1991).