A Liberal Education?

I just got back from a videoconference from Pittsburgh of an open forum discussion with the president of Carnegie Mellon, Jared Cohon. Getting these things videoconferenced to Doha is a fairly rare thing, something I hope the university seriously moves towards changing. I can't tell you how many times I've seen emails about distinguished lecturers coming to the main campus and desperately wanting to see them, not only b/c I find them interesting but because I think the students would greatly benefit from hearing the speaker. Regardless, I was glad to see the door had been opened and was excited to attend.

There were many questions given to the president, but the opening comments had more to do with a new partnership that might happen with KAUST, or the King Abdullah University for Science and Technology, in Saudi Arabia. Many comments and concerns were thrown out there about having a presence in a country the US government deems "unsafe" to travel to. In that case, I'm friggin' James Bond because Qatar is on that list, too, as part of the Middle East. There was one comment that stuck with me though. It was a comment made by someone regarding the status of women and "how could we support a regime that suppresses certain portions of the population like women and Jews." HELLOOOOO. Last time I checked, American didn't give a flying (expletive) about people below the poverty line, all sorts of minority groups, and for that matter elderly people. Or at least its policies certainly don't reflect that. Anyway, that's not the point. The point is that the tone of the conversation and this particular person's remarks turned to that of self-righteousness in CMUQ and western education's role in general in terms of "educating" and "liberating" these oppressed peoples. And that felt very uncomfortable for the people on the Doha end.

Back in November at a Student Affairs symposium, a similar topic came up but from the opposite perspective. It asked the question: "What is the purpose of a liberal education in a non-western context?" Is it ultimately to make liberal according to US standards the thoughts and the actions of the students we're teaching? Is it to liberate people from the "wrong" way of thinking about women's rights, labor laws, or globalization? Are we really trying to instill more liberal values and perspectives into students in a social and cultural environment where western liberalism not only has no place but is quite unwelcome? These same questions of becoming more liberal as a result of education can be asked just as easily in a western context. Sure we're here to educate students on how the rest of the world thinks about things. That's what true education is about - working with what you already know and expanding it by broadening and informing your perspective. But it's dangerous to say that we're here to change the mentality of a culture that's existed long before America even had a mentality of which to speak. I think way too many people in the states come into non-western, international environments thinking just that.