Leon Botstein knows firsthand the value of a liberal arts education. As an immigrant to America from Switzerland as a child, he prospered because of supportive parents and their commitment to steering him toward a liberal arts education. He says it’s the most useful type of undergraduate education for today’s challenges and that it’s needed now more than ever.
As president of Bard College, Botstein has championed the liberal arts curriculum since taking leadership of the college in 1975. He’s also expanded the reach of a liberal arts education by creating the Bard Early College program for high school students and the Bard Prison Initiative, which offers incarcerated people the chance to change the trajectory of their lives by earning a college degree.
Over many years of leading Bard College, Botstein has focused on how a liberal arts education can create opportunity and improve lives. His message runs counter to those who advocate that college should essentially focus only on training a person for a profession.
“The idea that liberal arts are a luxury or useless is simply ignorant,” Leon Botstein said in an interview on the “Now What? With Carole Zimmer” podcast. He pointed out that statistics show liberal arts graduates enjoy good income, stability, and employment, adding that the idea of liberal arts as useless is “a very American utilitarian, a little bit anti-intellectual prejudice.”
Studies have shown that liberal arts graduates earn $20,000 a year more than the average high school graduate, and they also experience rapid growth in salary in their 30s and 40s — the fastest growth at that age among all college majors. About 90% of humanities graduates also report being satisfied with their lives.
A Life of Liberal Arts Helped Leon Botstein Ascend in His Own Career
A native of Zurich, Leon Botstein is the son of Polish Jewish immigrants who made their way to the United States during his childhood. They eventually settled in New York City. Nurtured by his parents and the rich cultural and educational tapestry of his surroundings, Botstein embraced education at a young age.
Under the tutelage of the renowned violinist Roman Totenberg and mentors from the National Conservatory in Mexico City, Botstein honed his musical talents. His formative years included attending the High School of Music and Art, where he graduated at age 16. He later graduated with degrees in history and philosophy from the University of Chicago and went on to complete a Ph.D. in history at Harvard University, writing on the musical scene in Vienna in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
He became president of Franconia College in New Hampshire at 23. In 1975, he left to take over as president of Bard College. Botstein serves as conductor and musical director of the American Symphony Orchestra. He also established the Bard Music Festival and served as conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in Israel.
Higher Education Leaders Play a Key Role in Preventing Decline of the Humanities
The wide variety of cultural and educational experiences in Leon Botstein’s life have influenced how he approaches higher education. He’s experienced the positive impact of a liberal arts education and witnesses it in students at Bard College and its programs. He believes fighting against a decline of the humanities is part of a college administrator’s job.
“We have to stop worrying that we as humanists are not in a monopoly professional situation about a subject that someone who’s a physicist, or a biotechnology expert, is,” Botstein told The Chronicle of Higher Education. “We need not to worry that we could be a service discipline; there’s nothing wrong with that. We love having people in our classes who are not musicians and don’t want to become professional musicians — who are amateurs. That’s great.”
He added that advocates for the humanities must make an argument that “doesn’t necessarily fall into the patterns of professional career development, as defined by the graduate schools.”
He’s not alone in that assessment. An Association of American Colleges and Universities report found that employers place a high value on employees who have a college education and the broad knowledge attained by study in the liberal arts.
The Harvard Business Review reported that many critics employ “a false dichotomy between a liberal arts education and preparation for work and life.” This, HBR added, obscures the reality “that colleges and universities continue to represent powerful institutional forces in catalyzing individual and societal transformation.”
A Liberal Arts Education Prepares Graduates for a Changed World
Leon Botstein notes that a liberal arts education has become even more important in a digital age where innovative technology is integrated into professional and personal life.
“Technology has displaced some jobs, but it has created a whole new set of jobs. The people who are better off in a period of innovation are college graduates,” he told the Huffington Post. “The narrowlyfocused vocational education is probably the most vulnerable.”
He added that most skills are learned on the job and that the best employees are those who can learn quickly and improve their skills. “I believe a college graduate is better off than a non-graduate. Liberal arts graduates have adaptability,” Botstein said.
In the “Now What?” podcast, Botstein said that in the modern world where technology is disrupting industry after industry, it’s a mistake for higher education to train people for specific jobs. Graduates can end up with skill sets that quickly become outdated.
Leon Botstein added that in the modern work environment, people need strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
“They’re going to have to figure out everything from science, to new technology, to new trade patterns, which take them out of the isolated neighborhoods they’ve grown up in,” Bostein said. “And they need to be able to think for themselves, and to communicate, and to learn new information, and process it. And that’s what literature, and history, and philosophy, and logic, and science teach.”