Gaede Institute | Programs The Conversation on the Liberal Arts
Healing What Ails Us:
The Liberal Arts in a Post-Pandemic World
New Dates: February 24-26, 2022
Download Call for Proposals View Past Conversations
How can liberal arts education contribute to healing the deep problems in our world made so plain in the last year? Is liberal arts education itself seriously ailing? How can we effectively communicate its value and relevance to key audiences?
Healing What Ails Us: The Liberal Arts in a Post-Pandemic World
February 24-26, 2022 | Santa Barbara, California
As hope emerges for coming out the other side of the COVID 19 pandemic, one thing seems clear in the midst of many uncertainties: the promise of liberal arts education could be greater than ever. Liberal arts education excels at providing just the creative, flexible, and interdisciplinary thinking that the pandemic response has required. The liberal arts, though at times certainly contributing to the racial inequity and injustice with which American society is wrestling, have nevertheless long been home to searching analysis and critique of those inequities and injustices. And liberal arts disciplines--history, sociology, economics, political science, religion, to name but a few--are essential to navigating the deep political polarization on such stark display over the last year. Perhaps at no time in the past half century has liberal arts education held more promise for healing what ails us.
But the future of liberal arts education is itself uncertain. Simmering questions have been given new force--curricular, pedagogical, institutional. Indeed, the very survival of many liberal arts programs and colleges is in question. Why, at the very moment when liberal arts education offers such promise, is its future so uncertain?
One answer is surely deep and widespread misunderstanding of the purpose and value of liberal arts education. We readily invest in those things whose value we understand. But too few grasp just how vitally important--both collectively and individually--liberal arts education is.
How do we get this message across? Healing What Ails Us: The Liberal Arts in a Post-Pandemic World will be an opportunity to explore the many ways that liberal arts education is essential to our individual and collective well-being, and to develop ways to communicate its value to an uncertain public.
Themes for conversation:
- How is liberal arts education relevant to the pressing challenges of American society? How might it have exacerbated those challenges? How might it help address them? Are there particular ways that religious communities interact with liberal arts education that might deepen or alleviate these challenges?
- What is the place of liberal arts education amidst increasing demand for professional preparation?
- What messages about liberal arts education does the American public hear? Do those messages engender confidence or skepticism?
- How can advocates for liberal arts education communicate its value effectively to sometimes uncertain publics?
Submission deadline for papers and panels: January 7, 2022
Molly Worthen, New York Times columnist and scholar of religious history at UNC Chapel Hill, specializing in American Evangelicalism. Her writing offers powerful reflection on polarization in American life, and her careful treatment of Evangelicalism--neither triumphalist, nor antagonistic--is a rarity.
Christina Edmondson, co-host of the Truth's Table podcast, and certified facilitator in cultural intelligence. Dr. Edmonson served for many years as Dean for Intercultural Student Development at Calvin University. Her sensitivity to how liberal arts education can deepen racial inequity and injustice will challenge us all.
Blakey Vermeule, the Albert Guérard Professor of Literature at Stanford. Her book Action versus Contemplation: Why an Ancient Debate Still Matters argues that a life of active contribution, absent a rich life of the mind, will often go awry, and reveals the urgent need for the liberal arts.
- Academic administrators and faculty members who wish to explore how best to communicate liberal education's purpose, value, and relevance in our social context, both within their own institutions and with key external audiences (for example, prospective students and their parents, employers, donors, and, for faith-based institutions, pastors and denominational leaders).
- College and university administrators and staff from departments beyond the academic division, whose role requires them to communicate their institutions’ liberal arts mission to internal and external audiences, for example: marketing; admissions; career services; development; student life; and, for faith-based institutions, the office of spiritual life or its analog.
"This conference has reminded me, after some time wandering in the proverbial desert, of why I got into academics in the first place."
—Conversation on the Liberal Arts participant
Format
The Conversation on the Liberal Arts is not a typical academic conference. We have great speakers, and we have much to learn from them. But all of us are engaged in this work everyday, so we also have much to learn from each other. To stimulate this mutual teaching and learning, we keep the conference small; we anticipate fewer than 100 participants. Plenary sessions include as much time for participants' questions and contributions as they do for the speakers' talks. Concurrent sessions are opportunities for discussion between presenters and attendees about key elements of the presenter's work. And there is ample time for informal conversation over meals and coffee—often the most fruitful moments of the conference. The crucial element throughout is conversation, where we can all benefit from each other's insights.
Participants
We also profit from a wide range of perspectives. This is a conference where administrators, scholars, students, and practitioners can talk to each other about how the issues look from their different positions, and where those from large universities and small liberal arts colleges, from public institutions and private, from faith-based institutions and those with no religious affiliation can explore shared challenges from our differing contexts. Attendees consistently remark on the distinctively personal tone of these three days, praising the diverse, face-to-face dialogue that often is missing at academic gatherings.
In short, the Conversation on the Liberal Arts is a hospitable place for dialogue across what are too often boundaries in higher education—dialogue about the shared challenges, and especially the shared promise, of liberal arts education. We hope you'll join us!
|
Regular Registration |
$300 |
| Student Discount for undergraduate and graduate students | -$100 |
- Participants can contribute to the conversation in a variety of ways, which might include: presenting an individually- or jointly-authored paper for discussion; offering a panel discussion giving a variety of perspectives on a topic; leading a workshop equipping participants with tools for addressing challenges they face in their institutional contexts.
- If proposing a paper, please submit either a 350-word abstract or a completed paper (maximum 25 pages in English, and including a short abstract). If proposing a panel or workshop, please submit a 350-word synopsis of the presentation or activity. Direct all submissions to libarts@westmont.edu. For papers, all standard academic citation and formatting styles will be accepted, but Chicago is preferred. Be sure to include: 1) First author’s full name, academic rank or job title, name of institution or organization, and contact information—mail, phone, and email; 2) Full names, ranks or titles, and institutions/organizations of all co-authors; 3) Title of abstract or paper. All student work should be clearly identified as such. For panels or workshops, please include full names, ranks or titles, and institutions/organizations of all panelists or workshop leaders.
-
Submission deadline for papers and panels: January 7, 2022
- Download the Call for Proposals
Participant Information
As the title of our event suggests, these days are intended to be an extended conversation rather than a traditional academic conference, and participants will be coming from a wide variety of backgrounds and professional roles. With these considerations in mind, we recommend the following, especially as you prepare for concurrent panels.
- For All Participants
Please come to the panels having read and processed the authors’ work (as applicable) and prepared to engage in discussion with your colleagues. Some concurrent sessions will include formal, pre-submitted papers; these will not be read in the session, but will be available for reading prior to the conference. We encourage you to treat concurrent and plenary discussions as real conversations, in which all are welcome to initiate and respond, rather than as traditional Q&A sessions between “experts” and “audience.”
- For Concurrent Presenters
If you are presenting a formal paper, plan to use no more than five minutes to summarize your work, focusing on key ideas and areas for further discussion, and taking care to make your work accessible to a broad audience of non-specialists. As a part of these introductory remarks, we encourage you to pose some formal, well-considered questions for discussion among your colleagues. Paper handouts are welcome; AV equipment will not be provided except by special arrangement.
- For Moderators
We've allowed 60 minutes for each concurrent session. Please politely enforce five-minute limits for individual presentations, leaving the majority of the time for conversation. Beyond this recommendation, format is at your discretion. Feel free to manage the time and discussion leadership in a manner that suits the room and the material at hand. Do try, of course, to balance the conversation so as to give roughly equal time to each paper, and be prepared to seed discussion with your own questions or comments if conversation flags. Please make every effort to end on time, giving your colleagues ample chance for a break before the next session.
Flying
The Santa Barbara Airport is just 20 minutes from campus, and 15 minutes from waterfront hotels. Rental car and taxi services are conveniently located on site. Los Angeles International Airport is a 75-minute drive from Santa Barbara; from there, the Santa Barbara Airbus takes you directly to the complex of waterfront hotels that will be served by our campus shuttle. Amtrak is not cheaper or more convenient, as it requires a shuttle to and from LA Union Station. However, the train provides spectacular views of the LA basin and Pacific coastline.
Driving and Parking
Driving directions to campus may be found here. A map of campus may be found here. Parking at Westmont is free and no permit is necessary in any lot. The best parking options are the Global Leadership Center Lot or the Kerr Student Center Parking Lot (P1 on map):
- Global Leadership Center Lot: Enter through the lower campus gate (hard left turn off Cold Springs Road), then make an immediate right to follow a smaller campus road parallel to Cold Springs. That road turns sharply left at a collection of golden-tan buildings; that is the Global Leadership Center. Additional parking is available as you continue on this road back toward the main campus loop.
- Kerr Student Center Lot: This lot usually has plentiful parking, but is slightly further from the GLC. To get there, bypass the lower entrance, then bear left at the fork in Cold Springs Rd., then left again to go through the large stone upper campus gate. Once you're through the gate, make an immediate left into a large parking lot (if you find yourself on a circular drive bordering a large lawn, you've gone slightly too far). From there, registration at the GLC is just to the south; from the lot, walk downhill on the path bordering Kerr Student Center, then bear left across the long footbridge. The GLC is the collection of golden-tan buildings just across the bridge.
Train
The Santa Barbara train station is at the lower end of downtown, a short taxi ride, or 20-minute walk, from East Beach hotels.
Campus Shuttle
Shuttle service will be provided between campus and the hotels listed below. Shuttles will run at the beginning and end of the program each day (see "Shuttle Information" tab for more).
Accommodations
The campus shuttle will serve only the hotels adjacent to East Beach (see the "Shuttle Information" tab for shuttle stop locations). You may wish to stay elsewhere, but please be aware that you will be responsible for arranging your own transportation to and from conference events. Shuttle-line hotels include:
- The Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort
- Santa Barbara Inn
- Hyatt Centric Santa Barbara (served directly by the Santa Barbara Airbus from LAX)
- The Inn at East Beach
- Cabrillo Inn at the Beach
- Pacific Crest Santa Barbara
- Motel Six
The shuttle will run between campus and select local hotels. City buses and local trolleys stop at these locations, too, so be sure to look for the Westmont shuttle. There are two shuttle stops: East Beach and Hilton, both on Cabrillo Boulevard (see below for precise locations).
Shuttle Stops
- The East Beach stop is just to the east of the Hyatt, and serves all waterfront lodging except the Hilton. From these hotels, most participants will walk to the beachfront boulevard (Cabrillo) and turn left. The stop is a bus turnout at the corner of Cabrillo and Ninos Dr. View in Google Maps
- The Hilton stop is just to the east of the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort, and serves this hotel only. Exit the front of the Hilton, toward the beach. Turn left and walk along the waterfront until you see a large rainbow arch sculpture. The shuttle stop is directly in front of this sculpture on Cabrillo Boulevard. View in Google Maps
Shuttle Schedule
Shuttles run once at the beginning and once at the end of each program day. Precise pickup times will be posted several weeks prior to the conference.
You can download a general Westmont College map here.
A customized conference map will be published several weeks before the conference.