NEH Enduring Questions Course on "Why Be Educated?"

FAIN: AQ-50225-10

McDaniel College (Westminster, MD 21157-4390)
Peter Bradley (Project Director: September 2009 to April 2014)

The development of a first-year course on the nature and value of liberal education.

The course to be developed with NEH grant funds asks the big question that continually haunts the academy: Why Be Educated? Is higher education an intrinsic good, or is it to be valued only in the context of the need for an informed electorate? Is an educated person a more moral or more virtuous person than an uneducated person? Are the liberally educated better people than the technically educated? Are those who grapple with the 'enduring questions' better equipped to adapt to the complexities of modern life than those who get a technical, vocational education? In the "Why Be Educated" seminar, students will be challenged to grapple with these questions.