Qualitatively Liberal Arts

    I have, since my entry into the public school system at age four, been a liberal arts girl.  I'd swap any math problem for a glimpse at a good book, or paper and pencil to write something inspiring.  However, the liberal arts require an immense amount of critical thinking, and what most in the general public fail to realize is the liberals arts are threatened by tight budgets and big business despite their ability to craft critical thinking skills in its participants.

   Part of being a liberal arts girl is that I like thinking about things.  I enjoy solving problems efficiently and effectively; sometimes I secretly solve problems no one knows exists, or no one cares about.  I often lack any ability to read research without thinking of five billion questions that I still have, or three million ways I would have researched the topic differently.  Perhaps my upbringing on a farm nurtured my critical thinking skills, but perhaps I was, too, born a liberal arts girl.  Either way, I love dissecting the written word, and I love finding the perfect word to write. This is why my colleagues are always baffled at how much I enjoy, understand, and absorb all types of research.
 
     While I do not fear crunching numbers, my true passion is interpreting them.  The numbers are merely the secret code to a larger story.  I was drawn to literature as a major because literature contains all the great stories, and those stories are equal opportunity stories (says Carl Jung's theory on the collective unconsciousness). And human stories (as opposed to particle stories, or rock stories) are the most fascinating of all the stories in this realm.

     As I experienced the epiphany of doctoral work and its relationship to career advancement, I never imagined I would persevere in a doctorate program with a strong research component like an educational doctorate.  My plan was, always, to pursue my Ph.D. in World Literature or Gender Study or Poetry.  However, I could not deny the power in research, and in order to exact change in education - and let the liberal arts lovers continue to have liberal arts available - I needed a program strong in research pedagogy.

     I do have a research background; part of my master's thesis involved the use of reader response theory and cloze sentences as therapy for adolescent male sex offenders with emotional disabilities in a language arts classroom.  However, that experience was not without its challenges.  First and foremost, my thesis chair could not understand using this theory in partnership with special education theory; her Ph.D. in Rhetoric afforded her no frame of reference for educational pedagogy in special education.  Although I loved the research, working with the students in their small focus groups, and collaborating with the therapist on poetry, I was disappointed in the dismissal of educational pedagogy as valuable.  I did finally get my thesis approved, but only through the insistence of my education professor.  This made me hesitant to do any more research.

     I fear the research process because it is only as useful as those who read and can understand it.  I fear that my ideas are only as relevant as the words I choose to write about them, making the liberal arts so essential in the space of education. The most challenging part of my doctoral experience is the inability of others in higher education to see that the lines between disciplines are merely suggestions; research from multiple perspectives and theories can exact change.   While I know that boundaries are necessary, they should not be permanent.  Higher education faculty should realize the freedom in reevaluating the boundaries; it is in these uncomfortable spaces that we can find what we didn't know we were looking for.