For this civic issues blog, I am going to again, focus on the state of North Carolina. The article I found, is regarding a women, Emily Booker, who’s undergraduate career at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is coming to an end this spring. She is a journalist but because of the university’s ‘connections & approaches’ requirements surrounding general education, she found herself in classes that she would never have taken if there weren’t certain requirements, she believes that because of these classes, she has a wealth of knowledge in completely differing subjects.
Newly-appointed governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory put liberal arts higher education under scrutiny when he was on a talk show earlier this year. Many of North Carolinians including Emily where outraged after he made it a point that state funding should be based regarding job creation rates. He said, “it’s not based on butts in seats, but how many of those butts can get jobs,” causing many citizens to be very upset, especially if they are focusing on a liberal arts education. He went onto explain that if students want to take classes such as philosophy, gender studies or Swahili, then they can do so at a private school/university, he simply doesn’t want to subsidize those classes/subjects if its not going to get someone a job.
Emily then goes onto explain that going into school she was planning on pursuing a degree in science, but shortly upon entering school chose to pursue a career in journalism, at UNC-Chapel Hill’s top ranked journalism schools in the country. She also goes into talking about how education is a lot more then ‘vocational training and short-term job creation.’ She stresses how important critical thinking; writing and communications are because they are huge factors in the advancing of innovation in our country. Skills such as critical thinking, writing, and communication are necessary and useful in all career fields, something that anyone could benefit from learning.
After finishing the article, it definitely upset me hearing a person of power slam liberal arts, and I don’t think it is fair to the students studying in a liberal art major to not receive as much funding as someone who’s in a law or engineering major. To me, it seems like he is very arrogant, although I understand he doesn’t want to ‘waste’ money-subsidizing classes that won’t get anyone jobs. Yet, people who have a liberal arts education are just as likely to receive a job. I completely agree with Emily that everyone needs to have good critical thinking, writing, and communication skills because these are skills that are used in absolutely every job, and it would be useful to know such skills.
In the end, there is always going to be scrutiny surrounding anything, and there are always going to be people that don’t agree/ are very arrogant regarding certain issues. People just need to learn how to accept these and move on.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-booker/liberal-arts-education-th_b_2585513.html