Why innovators still seek the liberal arts mind

Ben Wildavsky writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education that the U.S. liberal-arts system is still considered valuable by a number of economic hard-chargers:

As Yale President Richard Levin often points out, it’s noteworthy that Asian nations, admired and sometimes feared by the West for their fast-growing academic and economic attainment, are showing great interest in U.S.-style liberal arts education. As evidenced by the proposed Yale-National University of Singapore partnership, Asian fans of the liberal arts believe that such studies create precisely the habits of mind that innovators need to be successful. That’s just one example of how the quest for economic progress through universities doesn’t mean that critical thinking and seeking knowledge for its own sake need be devalued.

• How Augsburg is going all Mark Twain
• How past U of M presidents view higher-ed today
• Metro State data breach affected 160,000 students