A Liberal Arts Education Won’t Make You a Liberal
John Crossman, CCIM, CRX
President @ CrossMarc Services | Real Estate Investment
Did you know that there is no successful downtown community in America that doesn’t have a college or university as part of it?
My first reaction when I heard that was that it couldn’t be right. Then I thought about it, and I think it’s absolutely right.
Colleges and universities contribute so much to their communities, and none does more than Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. It was an honor to have Grant Cornwell, the 15th president of Rollins College, as my guest on The Crossman Conversation.
Established in 1885 by the Congregational Church as a coeducational institution of higher learning, Rollins College is the oldest recognized college in Florida with an outstanding national and international reputation. The campus is purpose-designed for effective learning.
“We believe that the deepest learning takes place in the context of human relationships, and the design of this campus is meant to foster intimacy, conversation, and relationships,” Dr. Cornwell said.
With a student body of about 3,000 undergrad and graduate students, Dr. Cornwell said, “We are the size we are on purpose. It’s a much more rigorous style and approach to education than you can possibly do at scale. The kind of teaching and learning that happens here cannot happen in a lecture hall with 300 people.”
Students are able to take advantage of Rollins’ Winter Park location to engage with the community and intern with the many great companies in Central Florida.
“When you live in rural white America and you’re studying the world’s biggest challenges, you have to learn about them in a classroom,” Dr. Cornwell said. “At Rollins, our students are out in the Orlando metro area, engaging these problems on the ground. They can put their learning to work in the world while they’re students and when they graduate in a way that’s just not possible if you’re not in the middle of the action.”
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The phrase liberal arts comes from two Latin words: liber, meaning free, and ars, meaning craft, skill or art. When I asked Dr. Cornwell about the meaning of being a liberal arts college, he said, “A liberal education is not an education on how to be a liberal. It’s an education in how to be free. We teach how to think, not what to think.”
We talked a lot more about that, as well as about the various programs Rollins offers, the role of diversity in higher education, and, of course, about my personal passion: historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
Listen to our entire conversation here:
You might also want to hear my conversation with Valencia College President Kathleen Plinske. Go here to listen:
John Crossman is the founder of Crossman Career Builders, the host of The Crossman Conversation, and the author of Career Killers Career Builders. Check out Crossman Career Builders on YouTube. Connect with John on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.