the university, yet for all of that their curricula look remarkably like liberal arts colleges’ (and vice versa). Cejda and Duemer (2001) found that liberal arts colleges rely primarily
on their general education programs for meeting liberal education goals, just as at research universities, and that their curricula are not limited to the classical liberal arts and sciences disciplines. In fact, pre-professional majors are very much in evidence at these colleges, so they are clearly looking beyond the major to fulfill their claims of providing a liberal education. These colleges do not all have the resources to be mini- versions of research universities so the range of programs is typically smaller, but the essential structure is not. For the most part, liberal arts college curricula are built around a major, general education requirements, and electives, and their missions usually involve some forms of research, teaching, and service. They differ from AAU universities in terms of scale, quantity of programs, and emphasis, especially in regard to the balance between teaching and research.
This study reveals that the curriculum does not, in and of itself, represent a
distinction between research universities and liberal arts colleges. Significant differences may exist in how courses are taught and in the character of a typical student’s academic experience, but those differences are not explained by course requirements, the general education program, or even by academic breadth, long considered a hallmark of
institutions that specialize in the liberal arts and sciences. On the contrary, research universities on the whole give general education a place similar to the major (in terms of proportion of degree requirements), strive to achieve balance among academic divisions, and require courses in emerging disciplines such as diversity studies. AAU members’ general education programs are comparable to liberal arts colleges’ in terms of their theoretical approach to broad liberal learning, and their potential to expose students to other components of liberal education such as writing, speaking, aesthetic growth,
problem solving, and preparation for citizenship. They also emphasize liberal learning in their mission statements, even if it is not at the foreground.
What then distinguishes these types of institutions from one another? Is such a distinction important? It certainly is for students trying to select the institution that is the best fit for them in terms of intellectual interests, career goals, and potential participation in the life of the institution. If liberal arts colleges try to attract students by promising to provide them with a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences, and to fulfill the other elements in the definition of liberal learning, then they are offering nothing to help prospective students distinguish them from research universities. By such a measure a student would be as well off choosing a college on the basis of lowest cost or geographic proximity. But we know that the type of institution, and the student’s fit in that
institution, does in fact matter a great deal to academic success (Astin, 1993; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991). If this study enables us to eliminate the general education
curriculum as a distinction, we must then turn to other potential differences for further study, and liberal arts colleges must make a greater effort to determine their unique characteristics and communicate them to students.
There are numerous possibilities for distinguishing between research universities and liberal arts colleges beyond general curricular requirements or availability of a specific major. Foremost among these is the way that the curriculum is delivered. Is a faculty member’s primary responsibility teaching, research, or both? Are there reward systems for pedagogical innovation? How is teaching evaluated? Perhaps most importantly, what is the campus culture when it comes to teaching and learning for students and for faculty? Both categories of institutions may require a roughly even
distribution among the natural sciences, arts and humanities, and social sciences, but dramatic differences may exist in students’ expectations for laboratory work,
opportunities for creative endeavors, or potential to perform hands-on research. Liberal arts colleges must go beyond describing the breadth of their courses to a specific
description of students’ experiences in those courses if prospective students are to have the opportunity to choose the best fit for them.
In fact, the most important distinction between research universities and liberal arts colleges may be the most obvious: their sheer size. Honors colleges and residential living/learning units represent an attempt on universities’ part to create a small college atmosphere on a large campus, but for a liberal arts college this feature is already an intrinsic part of their identity, made manifest in every aspect of their infrastructure, from class size to faculty availability, from residency requirement to sense of community. Research universities certainly benefit from the financial and human resources associated with their expansive missions, facilities, and staff, and it behooves liberal arts colleges to identify the different benefits associated with their smaller size. Offering a broad liberal arts curriculum is too easy of an answer, and in light of the modern university’s curricular structure, not an especially helpful one.
F. LIBERAL LEARNING AND THE RESIDENTIAL EXPERIENCE