Confessions of an English Major: In Defense of a Liberal Arts Education

The value of reading has always been important in my family.  My involvement in Speech & Debate, Theatre, and Alpha, Delta, Rho Literary Society, also found general favor as appropriate extra curricular activities. 

The Ah, Ha Moment:  My senior year of high school brought with it a requisite unit on Shakespeare.  We had an amazing teacher (Mrs. L) who made the language come alive and inspired us to dive in head first assuring us that the water was in fact plenty deep.  That semester changed my life.  For one man to write such timeless characters and stories that reach into the heart of what it means to be human and strike a universal chord, amazed me.  Then Mrs. L introduced us to the concept of Shakespearian Archetypes.  The lesson on archetypes came home during a research session for debate when I cam across an article about non-biologically related look-a-likes. (Here’s a more recentarticle on the same topic.) It just made sense.  My friends Nate and Z, were not related yet shared spookily similar physical features, facial expressions, and movement patterns.  And my first major realization of the crossover from literature to real life took root. 

A few years later, when I announced that my college majors were going to be Communication (focus in Rhetoric) and English Literature, but I wasn’t planning to go to law school, the nervous looks started coming out.  

“What do you plan to do,” nervous friends and family asked.  My answers varied, but I had faith in the skills I was developing.  It wasn’t until much later, however, that I realized the real value of my love affair with the liberal arts.  The entire sum of my undergraduate experience can be summed up into three simple elements that have made all the difference: I learned to think, research, and create.

You can reframe these skills into much more resume appropriate, human resources approved, buzz-word savvy terms but they are the foundation of my intellectual growth and professional development. 

In the liberal arts we are taught to consume and analyze words, images, ideas, processes, history.  The best teachers push students beyond to learn about the systems and climates that inspired such creations, then a step further to really understand the impact those cultural artifacts had on the world ever after.  All things come back to the human experience, and what better way to understand that experience than to study literature, art, history, sociology, political science, religion and philosophy.  Everything else stems from and returns to this foundation. 

Please understand that I’m not downplaying specialized educational tracts.  We need to have highly trained nurses, engineers, accountants, mathematicians, and even lawyers.  But let’s also acknowledge the roles of the liberal arts majors who dissect social norms and organizational systems only to rebuild them stronger and more efficient than ever before.  It’s time to acknowledge the value in teachers who change plans time and time again because not all kids learn the same way or on the same schedule (even if that’s how the state wants it).  Let the student who majored in Philosophy and Computer Science be proud that he brings a heightened ethical framework to the projects he develops from code to front end interface. 

To all my fellow Liberal Arts Majors, to anyone contemplating a course of liberal arts study, and especially to the parents and friends of those young people: THERE IS GREAT VALUE to studying liberal arts.  Are there jobs out there explicitly advertising “Wanted: Liberal Arts Graduates,” probably not many.  Are there jobs that need liberal arts majors to do them well, you bet.  You see we are used to having to reframe and interpret material in innovative and exciting ways – even ourselves. 

Special Thanks to my parents for their love and support of my crazy academic wanderings

and to a few of my teachers (sorry for everyone I missed)

Bonnie Roehrborn

Janet Smith

Betty Buchanan

Anna Leichty

Traci Andis

Jeremy Bernstein

Monty Pedon

Bob Pickell

Br. Rob Reuter, C.PP.S.
Charley Kerlin

John Rahe

Heidi Rahe

Zachary White

Maia Hawthorne

Bill Mottolesse

Fred Berger

Fr. Tim McFarland, C.PP.S. 

Rob Pfaff

Sally Berger

John Nichols

Peter Watkins

Jody Watkins

Bill White

Mark Steiner

Fr. Ed McCarty, C.PP.S. 
Fr. Dr. Bill Stang, C.PP.S.

Confessions of an English Major: The Power of Words

My buddy Canadian Greg has offered a lot of sage advice over the years, but few conversations have stuck with me more than when he shared his philosophy on the power of words.   For readers who may not know Canadian Greg, he is an extrovert’s extrovert.  He’s a storyteller at heart and has rarely met a stranger. 

Family and friends often tease Greg about his prodigious abilities to start and hold conversations with total strangers and life-long-friends alike.  This ability also makes Greg a phenomenal businessman and leader in his field. Despite all of the conversations he participates in, Greg maintains a tremendous respect for the power of words. 

On some level, Greg acknowledges that between the words involved in formal and informal conversations (not to mention contracts, business e-mails, and client letters) millions of dollars and the livelihoods of dozens of families depend on him and the words he chooses to use and not to use. 

“Words are real,” he once told me while we were hiking through a Canadian Nature Preserve.  “People aren’t careful enough, eh?” (he’s Canadian remember) “You have to pay attention to what comes out of your mouth and what you write, because those words have power.  Like electricity you can guide them, but once they’re out of your mouth (or pen) a lot can happen and you can't take them back.” 

I still talk a lot.  So does Greg.  But ever since that conversation, I’ve tried to be more mindful of what I say and how I say it.  Writing, like sculpting, is often best approached as a process of refinement.  Distilling words down to their most elegant form.  Words represent ideas, and inspire action, giving each syllable a real world power to influence lives.   

More than any English Professor, Debate Coach, or professional mentor, I have learned some of my most important lessons about the power of words from farmers, grandma's, EMTs, secretary's, Firefighters, nurses, outdoorsmen, mechanics, and housewives.  Wisdom, when she comes, takes the least expected and most effective path.  

This post is the first in a series that will focus on the power of words, literature, writing, reading and general observations on the language that we use and misuse on a regular basis.    

The Name Game

Life gets more complicated when the lines start to blur.  As a young people we are taught to exist within structures, at home, school, and in the neighborhood.  Rules are imposed upon kids as much to teach as to govern, yet with each year the boundaries become more nuanced and judgment calls come into play.   

One simple example is the name game. 

My freshman year of college, I remember encountering faculty who insisted that we called them by their first names.  Doctor’s and Professor’s became Maia’s and Bill’s.  This request flew in the face of my upbringing in which people (elder’s especially) were referred to by their appropriate titles (Mrs. & Mr., Aunt & Uncle, Professor & Sister, Father & Brother, etc.).   I will admit I was uncomfortable with this at first, but eventually came to accept the reality of our casual college culture (though for some reason Dr. White was always Dr. White… to everyone… even to his peers… even to people who technically outranked him, but I digress).  The use of familiar names was, in fact, one of the first and most fundamental lessons of my college career that it’s important to adapt to the culture in which you find yourself. 

Now after a decade in the workforce, I’m still often the youngest person at the table and the questions remain.  The same questions come into play outside of work as well.

• When do you drop the MR. and MRS. when addressing the parents of your oldest friends?
• How about when meeting your significant other’s parents… it’s very different if you’re 16 year’s old vs. 36 years old. 
• What about when they become “in-laws” or “Ex-In Laws”? 
• When does your parish priest become Charley, instead of Fr. Smith?  
• When does your dentist become Janice instead of Dr. Ozwald? 

Where’s the balance between showing respect (Mr. and Mrs.) and using the familiar names.  Is it enough to approach everyone as equals, or does propriety demand you wait until given specific and explicit permission to address people by a less than formal moniker. 

How do you make that judgment call? 

While I’m not advocating that we get too caught up on labels and titles there still needs to be a measure of respect.  Your culture and the culture of those you are addressing will come into play, but that is very hard to determine in an initial meeting.  And the answers to this question may lie with the culture in which we were raised.  I have very distinct memories of my Mom sharing a little Irish prayer with us in times of social distress.

“May those who love us, love us

and if they do not love us,

May God turn their hearts

And if he does not turn their hearts,

May God turn their ankles

so we may know them by their limping.”

Now, I don't suggest that we give a limp to anyone whom we feel doesn’t love us… that’s called assault children.  Rather, I encourage that we have faith that good people will take our efforts as a genuine desire to communicate and establish rapport.  We are going to make mistakes.  Err on the side of formal and you may offend someone who doesn’t feel as though they are old enough to be “Ma’am.”  Err on the side of approachable and your attempt to connect may be seen as a disregard of the hard earned title of “Doctor.”   It’s the intention that’s important, and the faith that those who love us will love us.