Shotwell, Eva Tsuquiashi-Daddesio, Danette Dimarco, Ann Romanczyk, Michael Stapleton, David Skeele, John Constable, David Taylor, Cindy LaCom, Michael Detlefsen, Steven Strain, Sharadchandra Joshi, and Robert Buck. Although it should not need arguing by now, our great political philosophers from Jefferson to Dewey have all insisted on the need for a well-educated citizenry for the fundamental health of democracy. What sets the university apart from every other institution is our purpose of educating people for not only the aforementioned democracy, but for life. Education is not, as some suggest, a business. Students are neither products nor customers.
Career education is but one element of higher education.
A liberal education is the foundation of every career preparation. Training may prepare a student for a job, but a liberal education gives that person the means to keep that job and to achieve promotions, and it provides the tools to make career changes and advances where the needs and opportunities present themselves. Education is an end in and of itself, not simply a means to some other professional end. The central goal of the university should be to vigorously defend, preserve, and promote a liberal education. The marginalization of liberal education is not acceptable.