Liberating Education in Modern Metropolitan Universities

Abstract

During the past decade, many metropolitan universities have embraced an all-purpose mission and a limiting vision of liberal education. This has often led to a kind of illiberalism-as reflected in uncritical responses to seemingly insatiable community service demands as well as the maintenance of philosophical, structural, and symbolic barriers between liberal and professional educationthat is undermining the university's unique role as the intellectual center for its broader community. Metropolitan universities can arrest the growth of illiberalism by re-visioning liberal education as liberal learning and developing strategies consonant with that end.