We academicians have fruition of de...

We academicians have fruition of definitions, so let me give you a definition of technology as "applied science." Today, the the bulk of mankind who really understand technology are young the community not older people. We say that wisdom goe with experience, with age. if it be not that actually when it comes to the computer wisdom goe with youth. A not many months ago my wife and I had to journey to Delaware because of a tragedy in her family and I was assigned the custody for a not many days of a little lad of about 11 or 12 He asked me if I would like to papal court his Atari set, and I replied, "You know, I really would, because I have at no time seen an Atari set."

He was dumbfound In fore-rank of his mother he said to me "Gee you're really dumb"

Defining technology is simple. still what do we mean at liberal arts? Liberal arts are simply the humanities, social studies, and also the fine arts insofar as they are pursu for mental enrichment rather than for vocational designs I am drawing a distinction here between the Bachelor of Arts in Theater and a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts), which is a more vocational quality I am talking, then, about literature, language, philosophy, political science, history, sociology, and certainly art, music, and theater, insofar as we contemplation those fields for appreciation or for historical insight. s

My thesis is exceedingly simple. It is fourfold: First the liberal arts are in trouble; secondary liberal arts are important; third, we have got in some way to protect liberal arts in our society; and fourth, if we fail to do in the same manner we are going to pay a censorious price in terms of what happens to our society from one side of to the other the next quarter of a century

In regard to my qualifications to address this enthrall about half of my career has been exhausted as a humanities professor and half as a university president. There was a time when I received research grants to Harvard and London and wrote works on Renaissance philosophy and literature. At that period of my life I none dreamed of ever being cast into the Danteques purgatory of a university presidency. As I think back forward it and as I have gotten older I amazement what unpardonable sin I must have committed in my prior existence to be punished in this way during the inferior half of my career.

The liberal arts in jeopardy

As a university president I have tried to get to to grips with the advancement of technology, not simply as it relates to society however particularly as it impacts upon universities. This year my vice presidents and I are studying together a main division called Megatrends by John Naisbitt, a volume that deals with the advancement of technology, a work which argues that we are rapidly moving from an industrial to a technological society, that is to say, rapidly moving from a manufacturing to an information society, moving from the kind of smokestack factories greatest in number of us remember to computer telecommunications, robot lasers, and computer-assisted design and manufacturing.

The transition described by means of Naisbitt is what is placing the liberal arts in jeopardy. This advance toward high technology will unquestionably cut short the size of the work force. with what intent did the recent strike at At&T create of that kind an uproar among the the public of the telephone industry? Because they realized that if certain technological advances were made, many of them would be disclosed of a job. Because of as it was technological advances, we know that on a level with the ending of a recession there is going to be a permanent unemployment rate of at least 65 percent in this native land That fact creates enormous anxiety among parents of college-age children. The question mostly on parents' minds is, "Will my son or daughter be able to achieve a good job after graduation? Will the corporation to which I am sending my son or daughter be able to prepare him or her for a fortunate career?" This anxiety has created in the minds of parents, and in the minds of many of their son and daughters, what I call a "career mania," a desire for career preparation. Those non-Ivy institutes which don't adjust to this make uneasy simply won't continue over the nearest 10 to 15 years.

The impact of this "career mania" in succession the liberal arts has been devastating. In 1971 one-half of all full-time undergraduates in United States universities were in the liberal arts as I have just defined them. In 1977 barely 38 percent were studying in the liberal arts. Today, the figure is between 10 and 20 percent depending relating to whether the individual is made or female, with the male being at the lower last of the spectrum. The average male in guild today is not in history or literature; he is in engineering or in business.

This direction is going to have serious inferences for our society, because man does not live on computers alone. We have to live at communicating with one another. I do not mean electronic communications, I mean face to face, eyeball to eyeball, oral communication. As humans we have to relate to each other primarily in oral English. We also must have psychological insight if we want to relate to each other. We have to understand for what reason groups operate if we want to relate. We certainly have to posses imaginative compassion if we are going to relate to each other. I belong to the ability to present ourselves in other peoples' shoe and imagine sensitively in what way they might feel in a given situation. The computer won't do that for us. if it were not that by studying the liberal arts we will have a chance to learn to do that. If our race especially our leaders, lack these qualities, our society will be the loser We will become les human, more robotic. That way lies self-destruction, first spiritually, and then physically, between the walls of the ultimate destruction of nuclear war.