To pursue a liberal arts education is to pursue knowledge in the most stressful way possible, critically-acclaimed writer William Deresiewicz said Monday night.

Deresiewicz encouraged first-year students in the College of Arts and Sciences to pursue the liberal arts without fear of judgment or unemployment. Deresiewicz spoke Monday in the Goldstein Auditorium for the fall Milton First-Year Lecture, which is titled “The Value of a Liberal Arts Education.”

All first-year students in the College of Arts and Sciences attended the event, many having been assigned to read Deresiewicz’s new book “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life” over the summer.

College of Arts and Sciences Dean Karin Ruhlandt praised Deresiewicz’s most recent literary work, calling it a “very topical piece of literature.” Ruhlandt was also pleased with the choice that her colleagues in Arts and Sciences made in their recommendation of Deresiewicz as this fall’s lecturer.

“I won’t say that it was a no-brainer, but bringing Mr. Deresiewicz in to speak was not too difficult a decision to make,” Ruhlandt said. “We here at the College of Arts and Sciences aren’t trying to prepare somebody for their first career, but for the rest of their life, and William Deresiewicz has a great appreciation of that.”

Deresiewicz praised a liberal arts education, saying the advantage in such an education is that while specific, professional training will teach a student what to think about a certain subject, a liberal arts education will teach the student how to think critically across all disciplines, making him or her a more creative member of the workforce.

Deresiewicz directly challenged those in the audience and throughout the United States who believe that liberal arts majors have less optimistic career prospects with a quote he took directly from David Rubenstein, the CEO of private equity giant Carlyle Company. Rubenstein was speaking at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland when he simplified his hiring strategies down to a mathematical equation: “H=MC,” or “Humanities=More Cash.”

“There is a wealth of information at the fingertips of everybody in the world today,” Deresiewicz said. “It’s how well-equipped you are to use that information in an innovative way that proves your value to companies in the long run while you make your way up the corporate ladder.”

To bring home his point about the value of the liberal arts, Deresiewicz brought full circle the advent of the discipline in Ancient Greece. The liberal arts were the foundation of citizenship in that era because they “liberated” the student, teaching him how to think independently and make sense of himself and the world around him. The freedom that those men found in knowledge is what Deresiewicz considers a fundamental joy of life and the edge that young people today need “in order to be a part of something bigger than themselves and the size of their bank accounts.”

Said Deresiewicz: “Soon your generation is going to have to collectively take responsibility as a generation for the world; college is the time to start.”

Published on September 21, 2015 at 11:12 pm

Contact Chris: cplucey@syr.edu