The Chronicle of Higher Education Interviewed Roosevelt Montás About the Revival of General Education
Roosevelt Montás, John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College. Photo by Rachel L. Crittenden
“One of the things that characterizes our moment is the immediacy that information and attention takes,” said Roosevelt Montás, John and Margaret Bard Professor in Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College. “We are deluged with minutiae.” The answer to this contemporary question, Montás argues, lies not in a technological approach, but instead in a classical approach to liberal education. In a wide-ranging conversation with Ian Wilhelm, deputy managing editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education, Montás laid out his vision for a reinvigorated general education—a vision that will be expressed through the new Chang Chavkin Center for Liberal Education and Civic Life at Bard College.
While the desire to prepare students for more than just a “narrow career” has spread throughout the higher education landscape, Montás believes we have “misread the public when we think that they are merely interested in narrow technical education.” “When you present general education as this form of education that prepares you for a life of citizenship or a life of engagement with your environment, and when it’s offered not as a replacement for a career-oriented education, but as its foundation, I think it is immediately appealing,” he said.
Montás envisions this work in broad terms, viewing the work not as a one-off solution for a single institution, but as a “general-education reform across higher education.” Bard College, he believes, is the perfect place to start such an effort: “Bard has a history of doing this type of thing with their prison-education program, with their high-school/early college program, and with their liberal-arts campuses in various countries. So it is a fitting home for what we hope is going to be a revival of general education in the United States.”
Post Date: 12-02-2025
While the desire to prepare students for more than just a “narrow career” has spread throughout the higher education landscape, Montás believes we have “misread the public when we think that they are merely interested in narrow technical education.” “When you present general education as this form of education that prepares you for a life of citizenship or a life of engagement with your environment, and when it’s offered not as a replacement for a career-oriented education, but as its foundation, I think it is immediately appealing,” he said.
Montás envisions this work in broad terms, viewing the work not as a one-off solution for a single institution, but as a “general-education reform across higher education.” Bard College, he believes, is the perfect place to start such an effort: “Bard has a history of doing this type of thing with their prison-education program, with their high-school/early college program, and with their liberal-arts campuses in various countries. So it is a fitting home for what we hope is going to be a revival of general education in the United States.”
Post Date: 12-02-2025