CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
LIBERAL ARTS AND THE FUTURE OF UNIVERSITY EDUCATION 
 
May 10-11, 1996 
 
The Banff Centre for Conferences 
Banff, Alberta, Canada 
 
2nd International Conference  
 
Sponsored by: Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the 
Liberal Arts (CIRLA) 
 
 
University education is no longer simply the concern of 
professional educators.  It has now entered the public forum as 
an object of political discussion.  The issues are well known:  
What form should public support of universities take?  How should 
the university be held accountable for that support?  How do we 
determine the significance and relevance of the education being 
offered?  What is the relationship between academic freedom and 
tenure?  
 
Related to these issues is the role of the liberal arts and 
sciences in university education.  Once assumed to be the 
cornerstone of higher education, the liberal arts and sciences 
have become the focus of intense political and social doubt and 
debate within the university, within government, and within 
society in general. Demands for more specialized and more 
practical knowledge suggest that the liberal arts are the luxury 
of an elite class.  At the same time, however, the 
ever-increasing need to work across disciplines points to the 
potential usefulness of both the skills that the liberal arts 
develop, as well as the issues they address.  Are the liberal 
arts vestiges of a lost era?  Are they a ray of hope in a future 
of uncertainty?  What, if not the liberal arts, is to count as 
the cornerstone of higher education? Is the very notion of a 
cornerstone itself anachronistic?  What role do the liberal arts 
have within the university and (post-)modern society?  
 
The purpose of this conference is to explore recent developments 
in the relation between liberal arts and the university, the 
polis and society.  But we are not only interested in 
conversation about the liberal arts; we also hope to foster 
conversation within the liberal arts, as the following topics 
indicate.  Papers or abstracts may be submitted on any of these 
topics (NOTE: this list is not exhaustive, but is meant to give 
an idea of some relevant issues. If you have an idea for a paper 
or session that is not included here, please contact the director 
of CIRLA): 
 
 
University education, politics, and society 
 
- The role of the university in contemporary society 
- Government policy on education: What kind of citizens do we 
want?  Who governs education? 
- Does the economic demand for flexible institutions mean that 
tenure is outmoded? 
- Technology, media, and the liberal arts: What are the 
implications of technology and the media on the shape and 
priorities of university education? 
 
 
Contemporary university education and the liberal arts and 
sciences 
 
- Are the liberal arts and sciences relevant (to the university, 
to society, to the student) anymore? 
- What relation is there between the liberal arts and sciences 
and practical education? 
- What relations do the liberal arts and sciences have to 
contemporary developments in continental philosophy? 
- Reinventing liberal arts:  How have the liberal arts changed, 
and how must they change, if they are to meet contemporary 
challenges? 
 
 
Border wars within the academy 
 
- Science and the social construction of knowledge: With the 
publication of books like Higher Superstition, some scientists 
have returned fire in what they consider to be an attack on 
science by the humanities. How does this debate affect the 
university? 
- Tensions and opportunities in interdisciplinary research and 
teaching: Is co-operation possible or even desirable? If so, how? 
- The character of the university and the liberal arts: What 
types of knowledge or investigation are legitimately part of the 
liberal arts? Is there a way of deciding at all? 
 
 
Diversity and unity 
 
- Gender and tradition: Women's studies and the liberal arts. 
- The classroom is the world: Reflecting diversity and fostering 
conversation among race, religion, and/or ethnicity. 
- What's worth reading/viewing anymore?  Ongoing issues of canon 
in text, art, and idea. 
- Fissures and bridges in knowledge, society, family, 
disciplines, curriculum. 
 
 
If you are willing to organize a symposium on one of the listed 
topics or on another one, please contact us.  As well, there will 
be a poster session, in which you may display innovations or 
ideas for liberal arts or interdisciplinary teaching or research 
expressed visually. 
 
Deadline for abstracts, draft papers, poster display proposals, 
or session proposals: November 30, 1995 
Notification of acceptance: February 1, 1996 
Deadline for completed papers: March 15, 1996 
 
Complete registration information will be mailed in the fall of 
1995. 
 
 
For more information, please contact: 
 
Bruce Janz, Director 
Centre for Interdisciplinary Research  
     in the Liberal Arts (CIRLA) 
c/o Chris Jensen McCloy 
Augustana University College 
4901-46 Avenue 
Camrose, Alberta 
CANADA T4V 2R3 
TEL: (403)679-1502 
FAX: (403)679-1129 
email:  [log in to unmask]