Can Professional Studies Be Included in The Liberal Arts Curriculum?

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Style file version Feb. 11, 03
C 2004)
Innovative Higher Education, Vol. 29, No. 1, Fall 2004 (
Can Professional Studies Be Included

in the Liberal Arts Curriculum?
Ian Stewart
ABSTRACT: This article discusses a business school professors approach to teaching a

University Seminar, the first course in the freshman year component of the liberal arts
requirements at Seattle Pacific University. Drawing on Cardinal Newmans The Idea of a
University (1873/1947), three theses shaped the design of the seminar. First, the seminar
topic should be put in historical, social, and ethical perspective. Second, the Christian
Scriptures should provide a set of control beliefs that can be used in moral and practical
discernment about the social responsibilities of business. Third, the use of common texts
can help in fostering broader social goals.
KEY WORDS: liberal education; Christian theology; common texts.
In 1998, I was one of 30 Seattle Pacific University (SPU) professors

to offer a University Seminar to first-quarter freshmen. The University
Seminar is the first course in the new Common Curriculum at SPU that,
along with the Exploratory Curriculum in specific disciplines, makes up
the liberal arts requirements all students must complete before graduating. The University Seminar is designed to introduce first-year college
students to the liberal arts at a Christian university through the investigation of a special interdisciplinary topic. After the University Seminar,
the Common Curriculum requires two parallel sequences of courses to
be taken over the first three years of college. The first sequence, University Foundations, consists of Christian Formation, Christian Scriptures, and Christian Theology. The second sequence, University Core,
consists of Character and the Community, The West and the World, and
Knowing and Acting. The final component of the Common Curriculum
is a capstone course taken in the students senior year, and the capstone
course is designed to integrate the common curriculum material with
the students chosen major.
Three features of this curriculum are noteworthy. First, in an attempt to integrate students experience between general and specific
Ian Stewart received the Ph.D. from the University of New England, the B.D. from the
Melbourne College of Divinity, the M.Com. from the University of Auckland, and the
B.C.A. from the Victoria University of Wellington. He is Director of the Faculty Center
for Professional Development at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona,
California.
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2004 Human Sciences Press, Inc.
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INNOVATIVE HIGHER EDUCATION
education, the new curriculum blends the Common Curriculum with

the students major requirements over the four years of college. Second, 20 students form a cohort and attend all freshman classes in the
Common Curriculum together. Astins work (1993) suggests that [t]he
strongest single source of influence on cognitive and affective development [in college] is the students peer group (p. 389). Third, the
Common Curriculum uses selections from the SPU canon, works of
literature, art, music and science that reflect the Universitys core values. These works are studied by all students.1 For example, the common
text chosen for the University Seminar was the Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass (1845/1995) a powerful autobiography of a 19th century former slave and abolitionist. The hope is that students will find
freedom, identity, and faith in their education, just as Douglass did.
My background and training is in the accountancy profession. So my
participation in the University Seminar program raised some challenging questions for me. First, how do I introduce my students to the liberal arts through an investigation of my specialtycompany financial
reportingthat is a practice-based discipline? (Company financial reports are public documents produced annually by corporate accountants
and distributed to stockholders to provide information for investment
decision making.) Second, how do I accomplish this in the context of
a Christian university in a Wesleyan tradition? Wesley viewed wealth
accumulation as mortal sin in the context of being surrounded by those
whose basic needs are not yet met (Maddox, 2001). The corporate accountant reflects the powerful interests of capital. The needs of other
constituentsemployees, neighborhoods, and customersremain repressed or hidden (Cooper & Sherer, 1984; Korten, 1995; Niemark,
1992). Third, how do I incorporate a slave narrative into my seminar?
The expectation was that each professor would spend at least one class
session discussing Douglass. Could I draw a parallel between slavery
and the creation of a new American class of impoverished industrial
wage slaves (Spiegel, 2003, p. xvi), or the plight of modern day sweatshop workers? These were just a few of the questions that ran through
my mind.
1 Those
works included in the freshman year courses of the common curriculum (University Seminar (USem 1000); Christian Formation (UFdns 1000), and Character and
the Community (UCor 1000)) are as follows: Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass,
autobiography by Frederick Douglass, Great expectations, novel by Charles Dickens;
Skin of our teeth, play by Thornton Wilder; Porgy and Bess, opera by George Gershwin;
Sistine Chapel, painting by Michelangelo; The chosen, novel by Chaim Potok; Imitation
of Christ, by Thomas A Kempis; Devotional classics, by Richard Foster, and The book of
common prayer.
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Professional Studies and Liberal Arts Curriculum
69
To help me think through these issues, I read John Henry Cardinal

Newmans The Idea of a University first, which is a series of lectures
delivered in Dublin in 1852 on the creation of a Catholic University
of Dublin. Recently republished by Yale University Press (1996), The
Idea of a University has had a major influence on the debate about the
character and aims of higher education (Pelikan, 1992; Turner, 1996).
The Newman scholar Martin J. Svaglic called The Idea of a University
that eloquent defense of liberal education . . . and certainly one of the
most intellectually accessible to readers of every religious faith and of
none (quoted by Pelikan, 1992, p. 7).
Drawing on the work of Newman, three theses shaped my design for
the course. The first is that corporate financial reporting can be taught
as an introduction to the liberal arts if it is embedded in the wider
world of socio-political-economic arrangements, policies, and interests
to which it belongs. The second is that company financial reporting
can be taught within the context of the Christian university if theology
is allowed to provide a set of control beliefs to guide its conduct. The
third is that well chosen texts like the Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass can help to create common understanding around social issues, in this case race, which can help students training for business and
the professions understand larger social purposes. The importance of
these endeavors seems even more critical in the wake of several recent
accounting scandals which have brought into sharp relief the stunted
moral imagination of so many implicated in the associated business
failures. The structure of this article follows the order of these theses.
I begin with the question: How did I incorporate the philosophy of a
liberal arts education into my teaching?
Liberal Education
Newman viewed liberal education as a process of enlargement of
mind (1873/1947, p. 111) that allows one to see the connection and
interdependence of all things (1873/1947, p. 121). This interrelatedness
of all truth is essential to his ideal of an educated person (1873/1947,
p. 120). Truths about any part of the universe are qualified by their
relation to truths about other parts of the universe. In our own era,
Palmer (1998) describes this as the community of truth, a picture of
the great web or matrix of all being, images that emphasize the
connectedness of all things (p. 99).
Understanding the connectedness of knowledge is much more
than the passive reception of knowledge. The enlargement consists,
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Newman wrote,
in the minds energetic and simultaneous action upon and towards and
among those new ideas. . . . It is the action of a formative power, reducing
to order and meaning the matter of our acquirements . . . it is a digestion
of what we receive, into the substance of our previous state of thought.
(1873/1947, pp. 1189)
Modern learning theory also emphasizes the way learners construct

meaning for themselves by building connections to existing knowledge
and organizing information for later retrieval (Bransford, Brown, &
Cocking, 2000, pp. 10ff; Cross & Steadman, 1996, p. 43). The truly great
intellect, Newman wrote, is one which takes a connected view of old
and new, past and present, far and near, and which has an insight into
the influence of all these one on another (1873/1947, p. 119).
This process not only helps overcome the fragmentation of specialized
subject matters, it also cultivates a certain type of person. The liberally
educated person has . . . learned to think and to reason and to compare
and to discriminate and to analyze . . . has refined his taste, and formed
his judgment, and sharpened his mental vision (1873/1947, p. 146).2 As
Newman said the person who has been placed in this state of intellect,
. . . can take up any one of the sciences or callings [professions]. . . or any
other for which he has a taste or special talent, with an ease, a grace,
a versatility, and a success, to which another is a stranger (1873/1947,
p. 147). It is in this sense that Newman argues that mental culture is
emphatically useful (1873/1947, p. 147).
Newman, however, argued against professional, scientific, or useful
knowledge as the sufficient end of university education. He contended
that . . . the culture of the intellect is a good in itself and is its own
end (1873/1947, p. 146). In arguing against professional education as
the goal of university education, Newman did not want to be disrespectful towards particular studies, or arts or vocations, and those who
are engaged in them or . . . to imply that the University does not teach
Law or Medicine (1873/1947, p. 147). His conception of the role of the
professor from a professional school in the context of the university was
that
[O]ut of a University he is in danger of being absorbed and narrowed by
his pursuit, and of giving Lectures which are the Lectures of nothing more
than a lawyer, physician, geologist, or political economist; whereas in a
2 Newmans
audience in 1852 consisted of Irish Catholic gentlemen. This language usage

`
is reflective of the station of women vis-a-vis
both the church and the university at this
time.
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University he will just know where he and his science stand, he has come
to it, as it were, from a height, he has taken a survey of all knowledge, he is
kept from extravagance by the very rivalry of other studies, he has gained
from them a special illumination and largeness of mind and freedom and
self possession, and he treats his own in consequence with a philosophy
and a resource, which belongs not to the study itself, but to his liberal
education. (1873/1947, p. 147)
Thus in the university, I cannot give the lectures of an accountant or

convey to my students that the discipline of accounting offers a complete
or even adequate view of the world. I must show them where my science
stands by helping them realize that accounting offers a numerical view
of reality that is partial and incomplete (Hines, 1998; Morgan, 1988). I
must explore the role of accounting information in capital markets. The
standard conception of the capitalist organization of the economy is that
the market will allocate capital efficiently; that is, to its most productive
use. The role of accounting information is to provide information about
alternative investments and so aid the allocation process.
The belief is that the market mechanism will ensure that the wellbeing of society will be realized (Daloz, Keen, Keen, & Parks, 1996,
p. 234). In other words, what is good for the capitalist is what is good
for the worker, the consumer, the environment, and the nation. This
ignores what Daloz, Keen, Keen, & Parks describe as the profound interdependence of life and important values which the market has the
capacity to destroy but not discern (1996, p. 234). Since I wanted to
work with corporate annual reports in a way that connected to these
values, values such as safe workplaces, fair wages, clean air and water,
and reliable products, I chose the theme of corporate social responsibility for my class.
The enduring understanding (McTighe & Wiggins, 1998, p. 23) I
sought for my students was that they would be able to demonstrate
through historical analysis their understanding of corporate social responsibility as a struggle between the maximization of profit and the
common good that continues to the present day.
From the late nineteenth century, a recurring question in business
history has been How does business integrate the pursuit of profit with
the common good?3 Reflection on this essential question (McTighe &
3 Cf.
Henry Demarest Lloyds Wealth against the Commonwealth (1894) Holding back
the riches of earth, sea, and sky from their fellows who famish and freeze in the dark,
they [the syndicates and trusts] . . . assert the right, for their private profit, to regulate
the consumption by the people of the necessaries of life, and to control production, not
by the needs of humanity, but by the desires of few for dividends. (Quoted in Spiegel,
2003, p. xvi)
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Wiggins, 1998, pp. 2832) lead me, by the third time I offered the seminar in 2001, to design three modules to undergird my overarching
question for the course: one around the struggle between labor and
management over working conditions and wages, a second around the
struggle between consumers and management over the reliability of a
firms products, and a third around the struggle between environmentalists and management over pollution.
To mobilize students inquiry about each module, I asked students
to agree or disagree with the provocative statement Whats good for
the corporation is good for its workers/consumers/environment, and
I invited the students to defend or attack this controversial proposition using print and electronic resources in the University library for
their research. Students wrote microthemes (Bean, 1996, pp. 7983)
to enhance their writing skills (amounting to 30% of their grade) and
were allowed to choose other cases, novels, biographies around the labor, environmental or consumer movements as the subject of an oral
presentation (amounting to 10% of the grade). Through these various
explorations I encouraged my students to make interdisciplinary connections, to take what Newman described as a comprehensive view of
truth in all its branches (1873/1947, p. 91). Some of these connections
are outlined below.
I structured each module by providing a couple of cases, one earlier in
the twentieth century and one later, which I thought would sustain student interest. The module on the labor movement began with the Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in New York City in 1911 in which 146 young
women died when they were trapped high up in a Washington Place
building. It remains one of the most vivid symbols of the American labor movement of the need for government to ensure a safe workplace
(Cannon, 1995). The second case was of a mining operation, concluded
in 1990, of W. R. Grace & Co. in Libby, Montana, in which many miners
died from a particularly toxic form of asbestos. The topic that was of
greatest interest to my students was the student led anti-sweatshop
movement. I asked them to read articles on the way sweatshops exploit
workers and others that considered the limits of the argument that low
wage factory jobs alleviate poverty and accelerate economic development. Finally, I situated the debate in the American communities from
which jobs have been removed by asking about the responsibility of
corporations to help stabilize these communities. In each case, I tried
to engage the students in a larger set of relationships that would help
them connect the issues to other domains. It was in this context that the
class discussed the Douglass Narrative commented on at length below.
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For the second module on the environmental movement, I started

with a discussion of Rachel Carsons book Silent spring (1962), and concluded with a discussion of the 1997 Kyoto treaty limiting greenhouse
gas emissions. Carson is widely credited with starting this movement
with her book which was harshly critical of the pesticide industry. The
Kyoto agreement sparked a lively discussion. To encourage engagement
across different disciplines, I asked my students to examine the evidence for global warming; to explore some of the political and economic
dimensions of the issue by debating the trade-off between clean air and
jobs (particularly in the mid-west states where upgrading old power
plants would be extremely costly); and, finally to consider the international question of why the Bush administration removed the United
States from negotiations over the Kyoto treaty because of concerns
about harming the economy and crippling coal-fired power generation.
I began the third module on the consumer movement with Ralph
Naders book Unsafe at any speed (1965) and concluded with a discussion of the tobacco settlements of the late 1990s. In his book, Nader
suggested that the design of General Motors Chevrolet Corvair made
it unsafe. Less than a year after the books publication, Congress enacted the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which gave the federal government
authority to regulate automobile safety. I also wanted my students to
understand consumerism as an addiction to the acquisition and consumption of consumer goods; I wanted my students to see that the
gloss, the photographs and other striking design features of annual reports are largely designed to reinforce the values of consumer capitalism
(Graves, Flesher, & Jordan, 1996). And I wanted them to consider what
historical factors marked the rise of consumerism, and its place in their
own lives and choices.
It is possible for a professor from a professional school to introduce
his or her students to the liberal arts provided the professor shows the
way the discipline fits together with related disciplines. In my case, I
introduced my students to the liberal arts through corporate financial
reporting by expanding the scope of my students thinking, as well as
my own, to consider a range of economic, political, social and historical
literature bearing on corporations and their social responsibilities.
Christian Theology
Newmans argument for the inclusion of theology in the university
was first, that if the university is a place for teaching universal
knowledge, religious knowledge is knowledge, and so it has at least
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as good a right to claim a place there as astronomy (1873/1947, p. 38).

Second, as I have already pointed out above, Newman argued that all
sciences are interrelated; it is impossible to teach them in isolation from
each other. Theology, one of these sciences, must therefore be taken
into account (1873/1947, pp. 4546). Third, Newman elevated theology
above the other sciences as a kind of higher tribunal (1873/1947, p. 80)
that completes and corrects them. In Newmans words: Revealed Religion furnishes facts to the other sciences, which those sciences, left
to themselves, would never reach; and it invalidates apparent facts,
which, left to themselves, they would imagine (1873/1947, p. 64).
Newmans discussion of the pursuit of wealth is particularly apt in
considering my position as an accounting professor. Business historians and sociologists have long emphasized the importance of accounting
to capital accumulation. Weber (1930) and Schumpeter (1962) identified bookkeeping as critical to the rational and continuous pursuit of
profit which they identify as the spirit of capitalism. Like Wesley in the
century before, Newman (1873/1947, p. 82) cited Scriptures that make
it clear that the accumulation of wealth is expressly forbidden (Matt.
6:19). Indeed, Newman pointed out (1873/1947, p. 82) that the pursuit
of gain is condemned in Scripture as the root of all evil (1 Tim. 6:10).
The challenge for us today is that the cultural and economic context of
the churchs life has been altered beyond recognition by the two thousand years that separate us from the original writers and readers of
these Scriptures.
Wheeler (1995) suggested that the normative application of Scripture
cannot take the form of concrete rules, or even ethical principles, because of these enormous changes, but that it most naturally takes the
form of questions. Questions, as she put it, that . . . serve to reframe
our . . . inquiries about the ethics of property into the form in which the
New Testament is prepared to entertain them, the form in which their
theological significance is clear and central (p. 137).
The first set of questions Wheeler posed expresses the New
Testaments theme of wealth as a stumbling block, a hindrance to responding to the call to discipleship (pp. 1389). The second group of
questions she raised concerns the large body of New Testament texts
that view wealth and possessions as temptations to idolatry, occasions
to find ones identity, interests, and ultimate safety in something other
than God (pp. 139140). The third group of questions corresponds to the
New Testaments treatment of wealth as frequently the product and the
means of oppression. These questions address three areas of economic
justice: the accrual of wealth, its use, and its distribution (pp. 140141).
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The fourth, and final, category of questions concerns the responsibilities that ownership entails. These questions focus on meeting the needs
of those within and outside the Christian community (pp. 1423). This
category is consistent with John Wesleys dictum, if those who gain all
they can and save all they can, will likewise give all they can, then
the more they will grow in grace (Maddox, 2001).
My students found Wheelers first two sets of questions helpful in discussing their own response to consumerism. It was her third category
about justice in the accumulation, use, and distribution of wealth that
my students saw as directly applicable to the way many corporations
have exploited many for the profit of the few. However, Christian engagement in efforts at systematic reform of the organization and ownership of corporations has been very difficult (Korten, 1995; Schumacher,
1973). As Wheeler pointed out, because of the complexity and
intractability of structural or systematic inequities in the socioeconomic
mechanisms of a society, there will always be room for disagreement
about the most effective and appropriate strategy for redressing such
injustices (p. 141).
In summary, situated in a Christian university for whom the
Christian Scriptures serve as the central and privileged text of the community, I sought to frame my teaching around some essential questions
raised by Wheeler regarding the biblical material on wealth and possessions. These questions were provocative and multilayered and revealed
the richness and complexity of the issues we were discussing (McTighe
& Wiggins, p. 28). Practically speaking, these are questions which my
students can and should be asking again and again over the course of
their lives; questions which have no one right answer but open up important perspectives at individual, institutional and economy-wide levels.
Common Texts
Newmans view was that students would become civilized by acquaintance with the literatures and histories of ancient Greece and
Rome. Newman defended the importance of this literary framework in
a quotation from Dr. Edward Copleston,4
In the cultivation of literature is found that common link, which, among
the higher and middling departments of life, unites the jarring sects and
4 Dr.
Copleston was provost of Oriel College, Oxford from 18141828 where Newman
became a fellow in 1821.
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subdivisions into one interest, which supplies common topics, and kindles common feelings, unmixed with those narrow prejudices with which
all professions are more or less infected. The knowledge, too, which is
thus acquired, expands and enlarges the mind, excites its faculties, and
calls those limbs and muscles into freer exercise which, by too constant
use in one direction, not only acquire an illiberal air, but are apt also
to lose somewhat of their native play and energy. And thus, without directly qualifying a man for any of the employments of life, it enriches and
ennobles all. (1873/1947, pp. 14950)
One of the hopes behind the selection of a common text for the University Seminar classes was that it might help foster an intellectual
community around the themes of the chosen work. As the quotation
from Copleston illustrated, this can counteract a tendency of many
professions to overspecialize and focus on practical knowledge. It was
hoped too, that the text might provide a basis for a larger discussion
beyond the classroom. The text chosen, the Narrative of the Life of
Frederick Douglass, stands out as the most representative and superbly crafted (Houston A. Baker, quoted in Gallagher, 1998) slave
narrative. Gallagher (1998) noted that
[t]he slave narrative most obviously serves to provide a testimony, a moral
witness against the outrages of slavery. Dispelling many prevalent northern myths, Douglass chronicles the deliberate dehumanization caused by
the slave system: slaves lack of adequate food, clothing and shelter; families are systematically destroyed; male and female slaves are brutally
whipped and sometimes killed; African women are used as sexual objects
by white masters.
Although not every student will have the same learning experience
from reading this book (Higbee, 2000), it serves as an important way
of introducing students to the universitys core values. For example,
the book illustrates the first theme discussed above of how education
can liberate, or enlarge the mind. This is revealed in Douglasss own
quotation of his master saying that: Learning would spoil the best
nigger in the world . . . It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would
at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master (Douglass,
1845/1995, p. 57).
Another example is the way Douglasss story also raises the troubling question, related to the second theme discussed above, of how the
Christian Scriptures can be used to support slavery. His story documents the cruelty of pious Christian slaveowners, and yet Douglass
can still distinguish between the Christianity of the slaveowners and
the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ. As Tom
Amorose (1998, p. 5) pointed out,
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Douglass rails against a society that espouses Christian values yet remains blind to the evils of slaveholding. We, along with Douglass, ask
how could such evil remain invisible? But then, almost immediately, we
are forced to ask how many evils in our world we choose to ignore, heedless
of the call for biblical justice.
Amorose (1998, p. 5) noted that this is a lesson to examine the ways

that humans are owned by social or political structures, and the ways
that lead out of such slavery. To illustrate the way labor continues to
be exploited by social and political structures, I also used the photography of Lewis Hines which depicts the plight of immigrants and
children in American factories in the early twentieth century. After
the World Trade Organization (WTO) protest in Seattle in November
1999, I continued this theme by discussing the ways in which
corporations still own individuals. The WTO protests drew attention, among other things, to the use of child labor in many third
world countries (see the many examples cited by Korten, 1995,
pp. 2302).
As an accounting professor the passage that was of most interest to
me was Douglasss description of the valuation of his masters
estate:
We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and
young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. . . .
At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of
slavery upon both slave and slaveholder. (p. 27)
Flesher and Flesher (1980) provided corroborating evidence that, before the Civil War, human assets did appear in the accounting records
grouped together with the animals and implements. Accounting thus
also becomes part of the network of power relations (Miller & OLeary,
1987, p. 240) which was built into the very fabric of slavery as a socioeconomic system.
In summary, by selecting the Narrative as a common text, the University is seeking to build an intellectual community through the promotion of common learning experiences. The moving description of
Frederick Douglasss life as a slave is a way to help bridge the racial
barriers of American life today (Higbee, 2000, p. 52). It also raises
themes such as freedom and identity and the contrast between nominal and true Christianity. In my seminar, I related these themes
to the labor movement from the plight of children and immigrant
workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to
the present day with the recent WTO protests against the use of
child labor.
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Conclusions
Newmans The idea of a university provided a way of conceptualizing
the design of my University Seminar class. The opportunity to teach
first-quarter freshmen, many of whom have not decided on a major,
provided the best possible forum for drawing connections and for introducing my students to the terrain around my discipline. Newman
saw these interrelationships as the hallmark of a liberal education.
Perhaps even more valuable for me was that, given my students lack
of accounting training, I was forced to view the pictures in the annual report and read the narrative accompanying them rather than
just study the financial information. This helped me put my subject
matter in a larger set of relationships and led me to consider a lot
of literature that does not intrinsically belong to the field of
accounting.
As a result of this experience, I chose the theme of corporate social
responsibility for the substance of my seminar. To galvanize student
interest and inquiry around this theme, I began with the assertion
Whats good for (name of corporation), is good for America? This overarching question served to highlight the limitations of a laissez faire
approach to economics. Our review of the labor, environmental, and
consumer movements of the twentieth century demonstrated that one
cause cel`ebre after another catalyzed the government to act out of regard for the public interest. This struggle to bring trans market values
to corporate decision making allowed me to build connections across
disciplines, to practice the kind of holistic thinking Newman called
for.
A second theme reported on has been the attempt to understand my
topic in the context of Christian theology. Newmans contention was
that the Scriptures, the central and privileged text of the Christian
community for those who acknowledge its moral authority, should provide a higher tribunal before which each discipline should be brought.
My students and I found that theological beliefs did not provide pat answers about what we should own or how we should provide for necessary
food, shelter and clothing, but that they did challenge our assumptions
about the role of possessions in forming our identity and in shaping the
practical choices we make.
We also found that the Scriptures concern for economic justice raised
questions about the coercive or exploitative practices of corporations in
labor, management and marketing. Schumacher (1973, p. 284), for example, suggested that in small-scale firms, private ownership is natural
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and just, but in medium and large-scale firms, private ownership of

property can become exploitative. Of particular concern is the potential
for large corporations to foster corruption and inequity in the political
and judicial structures of society (Korten, 1995). I found it difficult to
engage students in systemic thought about these issues. Parks (1993)
attributes this to the dominance of a privatized sense of morality (in
contrast to a more public, systematized ethical awareness) (p. 26). The
challenge that my students and I face is to learn to work with individuals and communities with multiple issues lived not in discrete entities
but as an integrated whole (Daloz, Keen, Keen, & Parks, 1996, p. 227).
This was an issue that came up again in the discussion of slavery as a
socio-economic system.
A third theme explored is the role of common texts in fostering broader
social goals. Newmans view was that if a practical end must be assigned
to a University course, [i]t is that of training good members of society.
Its art is the art of the social life, and its end is fitness for the world
(1873/1947, pp. 1567). The Frederick Douglass narrative served this
purpose admirably by challenging students attitudes on race. It also
raised again the complexity and intractability of structural inequalities
in the economic and political arrangements within which corporations
operate.
My conclusion, therefore, is that viewed through the lens of Newmans
work, professional studies can serve the educational objectives of the
liberal arts.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge the contribution made to this research
by Seattle Pacific University and the Center for Teaching at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst where I spent my sabbatical leave
in 20002001. In particular, I want to thank Dr. Mary Deane Sorcinelli,
Director of the Center for Teaching and Associate Provost for Faculty
Development, and Dr. Mathew Ouellett, Associate Director of the Center for Teaching for their helpful comments on an earlier version of
this paper. Former colleagues in the School of Business & Economics
at Seattle Pacific also provided helpful comments on an earlier draft
Gary Karns, Denise Daniels, Loren Gustafson, Ross Stewart, Carolyn
Strand, and Kenman Wong. I want to also thank the reviewers of this
journal for their very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this
manuscript.
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