Subject: Re: Why Liberal Arts and Why Monticello College?
Doctor Brooks,
I have followed you since Cedar City and point students your direction as a serious option to traditional college. The decline of public ed and the increase in home ed certainly bodes well for post secondary ed like that being offered at Monticello College.
Without question, leadership education is critical. This article, however, gave me the impression that you believe that liberal arts should be taught at the expense of math, science, business, etc.
I was pre-med for two years at a very fine community college and then switched to business (med school was too expensive for me) for the last three years at BYU.
The combination of the science discipline, the business (organization development emphasis) orientation and the leadership experience as a service club officer prepared me pretty well for the business world.
I fear an over emphasis on liberal arts, to the exclusion of math and science, may turn away some potentially strong students.
Ed Barfuss
Ed,
Thanks for thinking out loud about this. The real issue here is the definition of the liberal arts. The items below are all vital to a solid liberal arts education. So the question is, how do we at MC specifically treat science and math?
Subjects Covered in Our 4-year Liberal Arts Degree:
• History
• Political Science
• Political Economy
• Fine Arts
• Comparative Religious Studies
• International Relations
• Negotiation and Diplomacy
• Statesmanship
• Constitutional Law
• Current Events
• Mathematics
• Protocol and Etiquette
• Entrepreneurship
• Public Policy
• Philosophy
• Literature
• Science
• Foreign Language
Nearly all college graduates are required to pass algebra or some higher math to graduate. However, how many college grads can actually solve math problems beyond basic arithmetic? Very few. Why?
Because like so many college courses, a student can skate through a class and secure a passing grade (C or even sometimes a D) without knowing or understanding much about the material.
This “we don’t know that we don’t know” way of life is becoming our common culture. The other day I overheard a person talking about the lack of math prowess in America, “we don’t really need math skills anymore, we just have to pick a box.”
The same is true for science (group projects where there is a collective grade, extra credit or make-up work for students who do poorly, can all lead to a passing grade but little or no grasp on the subject).
At MC, all graduates must show understanding and proficiency in arithmetic, algebra and geometry. Higher math is available upon request. This means that every graduate has proven a level of real world adaptability and working knowledge unheard of in the general population of college and university graduates.
Students Learning To Layout A Building
Coupled with classroom time, students learn math by doing, whether it is planning crop rotation and seed needs, calculating the amount of feed needed for the fish and other animals, or it might be developed while engaging in campus construction projects.
Using this hands-on approach, little is forgotten in later life.
Imagine a society where 75% of the adults completely understand how to use a checkbook and can fully grasp bank statements and understand the lasting ramifications of credit card interest rates.
Envision citizens who understand the math used to calculate mortgages, car payments, and Wall Street investments. Consider the impact of American adults who can calculate the cost of government policy and bailouts on their own without interpretation.
This is a world that we can only imagine.
Science is taught from the same perspective at MC. All science is taught in a hands-on, everyday manner.
Graduates have a good working knowledge of:
Soil Microbiology
Ecology
Biology
Animal Anatomy and Husbandry
Human Anatomy
Geology
Chemistry
Astronomy
Basic Physics
Hydraulics
Thermodynamics
Energy Generation
Aquaponics
A working knowledge in these fields is acquired by our students while engaged in real-world projects and everyday campus living.
One of the definitive sources of our liberal arts curriculum is the Great Books of the Western World. Along with history, law, philosophy and literature, are science titles such as:
Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres(Copernicus)
Harmonies of the World (Kepler)
Scientific Treaties (Pascal)
Hippocratic Writings (Hippocrates)
On the Natural Faculties (Galen)
The Two New Sciences (Galileo)
Optics (Newton)
Treaties on Light (Huygens)
Elements of Chemistry (Lavoisier)
Analytical Theory of Heat (Fourier)
Experimental Researches in Electricity (Faraday)
So you see, the currently used definition of liberal arts has been so diminished as to be a mere shadow of its former self. The definition we use is the one that has been used in the promotion Western Civilization for the past 3,000 years.
As for the campus, we are taking a very different approach to the physical plant for the college.
Monticello College is a different kind of school. We have a different mission and goal than most other colleges. We have a different kind of environment and lifestyle. We have a different kind of faculty and curriculum.
The MC campus lifestyle; or rather, how we live on campus, the day-to-day goings on, are designed specifically to develop a certain type of citizen. To do this we have created a living environment that stresses the advancement of five specific character qualities:
An awareness of needs versus wants
A sense of disinterestedness
Innovation and creativity
Personal and group self-reliance
Community service
As part of this process, the campus is adequate but austere. Boasting plentiful nourishment and accommodations, but limited in processed foods and the use of cultural technology. Most of our classes are held out of doors. We are an active and productive farm that incorporates the academics of the liberal arts, the development of utility technology, the self-confidence building of wilderness survival and self-sustainability.
Leadership education is more than the study of literature, history, philosophy, and rhetoric, it incorporates all of the subjects and disciplines necessary to produce men and women of virtue, wisdom, diplomacy, courage, with skill sets for solving problems, innovation and creativity, a sense of disinterstedness (a blog on this word coming soon), an awareness of personal and community needs versus mere wants and desires, an ability to provide personal and group self-reliance, and a strong sense of community service.
Whether the career future of our students is farmer, factory worker, the corporate world, or entrepreneurship, the skills, knowledge and wisdom developed during their stay at Monticello College will find them more than adequate to the challenge.
One Response
Awesome analysis. Thank you for your efforts.
Krislyn Elliott & Lauren Swanepoel
Krislyn Elliott and Lauren Swanepoel act more like sisters than moms as they take really slow walks through the woods together, looking at and taking pictures of every plant they see & wishing they could remember their names and uses more thoroughly. They also like concocting herbal teas, salves, tinctures and strange drinks.
Krislyn is from Utah and has loved learning about plants since an unusually cool high school biology teacher took his classes on neighborhood botany walks. She has always been fascinated and constantly amazed at the power and beauty of plants.
Lauren is from South Africa, she and her family emigrated to Utah almost 10 years ago. They have fallen in love with the area and know more about this state & the great places to explore here than most Utah natives.
We both feel strongly about taking care of our families with natural methods and the abundant medicine we have growing right around us. We are trying to learn as much as we can about our magical local plants and are looking forward to sharing some of our favorites with you.
William DeMille
Director of Georgic Develeopment
William DeMille is a lifelong vegetable farmer. He studied Horticulture and Agronomy at Northwest Missouri University, Maryville. He holds a certificate in aquaponic engineering and production from Cornell University, NY, and another from GrowHaus Aquaponics in Denver, CO. He also studied soil regeneration and is a graduate of Dr. Elaine’s Soil Food Web School. He is the Director of Georgic Development for The Center for American Legacy Studies.
William is a farm consultant establishing several agricultural startups since 2005 in Missouri, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada and he currently manages 2500 acres of grassland for the Ruby Mountain Foods Company.
His latest venture is a market gardening school called Georgic Revolution where he teaches a 17-week course onsite in Nevada covering soil health and vegetable production without the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. and where he operated a soil lab.
William lives with his wife Vernie in the snow capped mountains of Northern Nevada.
Lloyd Nelson
World Renown BD Expert
Lloyd Nelson has been practicing the art of Biodynamic (BD) Agriculture for over twenty years. He is a BD preparation maker, builder, artist, farmer, arborist, BD educator & consultant. He is co-founder of Biodynamic Source – a Colorado based non-profit specializing in high potency BD preparations – and he owns and operates a Biodynamic spray, fertilizer and consultation service. He has worked with small and large scale farms, vineyards, and orchards to transition to sustainable Biodynamic land management and Demeter BD Certification.
Vern Cox, PhD
Educator
Vern Cox is married to Joyce Christensen and they have 8 children. He has 3 earned degrees, a BA in psychology, and both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy.
He has had a diverse and interesting career that started with the Bureau of Land Management, followed by a stint as a Learning Disabilities teacher, and finally a marriage and family therapist, working his way up to executive director of the High Country Counseling and Resource Centers that served two counties in Wyoming.
Dr. Cox served for several years on the board of a charter school. Dr. Cox remains heavily involved in his community and the home schooling movement.
He has extensive background in marriage and family counseling, having held a number of administrative positions during his first career. He holds a BA in Psychology and both a Masters and PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy. He lives with his wife and several married children on their multi-generation farm in Southern Utah.
Joseph Lofthouse
Educator
Joseph adopted the principles of landrace gardening in response to the harsh growing conditions in a high-altitude, short-season, desert garden. Instead of relying on expensive poisons, labor, and materials to coddle the plants, he encourages genetic diversity, cross-pollination, and survival of the fittest, allowing the plants to adapt themselves to the current and ever-changing ecosystem, thus simplifying gardening and seed saving. Joseph is the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security Through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. Joseph loves eating, farming, swimming, hot-springs, sunbathing, bird-watching, running, yoga, leggings, kilts, playing guitar, singing, and living habitually barefoot.
Dan Brooks
Educator
Dan Brooks was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. During his first career, he spent 20 years working in and managing high-end restaurants and golf courses including extensive banquet/special events services and ice sculptures.
For the past 23 years, Dan has been a successful entrepreneur and family business owner in Las Vegas. He and his wife have 4 children and 11 grandchildren. He serves as a trustee for The Center for American Legacy Studies.
Shanon Brooks, PhD
Director
Shanon Brooks is the director of The Center for American Legacy Studies, an institution dedicated to helping families embrace and incorporate the Five American Ideals; Georgics, Liber, Providence, Public Virtue, and Liberty into their lives and communities. America exists because of Americans. Americans are the beneficiaries of a peculiar culture and way of living.
Over the past 75 years, that culture and way of life have been lost. Restore that culture and Americans will rebuild America to once again be worthy of John Winthrop’s 1630 admonition, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”
Brooks has been a leader in alternative higher education for over 30 years, and is the author of two books: AMERICAN: Killing the American Dream and A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens.
Dr. Brooks is a veteran of military service in the United States Submarine Fleet and holds a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, a Master’s degree in education, and a Ph.D. in constitutional law.
He and his wife Julia reside on the 80-acre conference facility of The Center for American Legacy Studies.
Subject: Re: Why Liberal Arts and Why Monticello College?Subjects Covered in Our 4-year Liberal Arts Degree:
Nearly all college graduates are required to pass algebra or some higher math to graduate. However, how many college grads can actually solve math problems beyond basic arithmetic? Very few. Why?
Science is taught from the same perspective at MC. All science is taught in a hands-on, everyday manner.
Along with history, law, philosophy and literature, are science titles such as:
Monticello College is a different kind of school. We have a different mission and goal than most other colleges. We have a different kind of environment and lifestyle. We have a different kind of faculty and curriculum.
Leadership education is more than the study of literature, history, philosophy, and rhetoric, it incorporates all of the subjects and disciplines necessary to produce men and women of virtue, wisdom, diplomacy, courage, with skill sets for solving problems, innovation and creativity, a sense of disinterstedness (a blog on this word coming soon), an awareness of personal and community needs versus mere wants and desires, an ability to provide personal and group self-reliance, and a strong sense of community service.
One Response
Awesome analysis. Thank you for your efforts.