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UMUC should focus on education, not business [Commentary]

Created on: 09/19/14 09:11 AM Views: 1579 Replies: 1
UMUC should focus on education, not business [Commentary]
Posted Friday, September 19, 2014 09:11 AM

Link to a commentary by Bruce Hull and Maggie Cohen in the September 18, 2014 edition of the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

http://touch.baltimoresun.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-81405082/

 
RE: UMUC should focus on education, not business [Commentary]
Posted Monday, January 26, 2015 12:44 PM

I totally agree.  I was quite discouraged by the idea that UMUC is focusing on business and jettisoning real education for business training.

The definition of a liberal arts education includes the concept of preparation for citizenship in a functioning democracy.  Once our institutions of learning pull away from that goal in order to prepare its student body for a time-, social-, and/or industry-specific "career" is the moment when democracy is lost.  As a people, we need to be able to think critically about issues, not follow the dictates of the current economic system.  Even our current capitalistic system has changed and it has done so because Americans were educated by a strong public education system (as called out in the Constitution).  When that system is undermined by training for the workforce we need today rather than educating the citizens we need today and into the future, we lose more than our ideals.  We lose the flexbility and intelligence to response to a rapidly changing world.