Liberal Arts Studies

At Ottawa University, we understand the liberal arts as an interdisciplinary discourse that blends focus and breadth, connecting the major/professional field with wider contexts and larger wholes, extending to the global community.  To this end, Ottawa University’s liberal arts studies program provides all students a shared core curriculum that develops critical thinking and long-term value for intellectual and ethical interrogation.  The liberal arts have a history that we seek to honor, albeit in a way responsive to contemporary reality. 

One feature that distinguishes Ottawa University from other universities that offer liberal arts and pre-professional education is Ottawa’s unique Liberal Arts Studies program (LAS).  Virtually all colleges and universities that grant a Bachelor’s degree require students to complete some kind of general education program.  These institutions often ask students to take courses in a variety of disciplines to ensure breadth, with the expectation that graduates will leave the University with more at their intellectual disposal than the knowledge of their major.  At Ottawa University, the curriculum provides opportunity for students to study elements of multiple disciplines, while at the same time learning critical thinking skills through a sequence of interdisciplinary courses.

 Critical thinking is the primary skill of the liberally educated person.  It is achieved, in an academic setting, via:

• Exposing oneself to a variety of disciplines and points of view
• Posing questions—and answering them
• Developing a comfort with ambiguity
• Requiring evidence for assertions
• Delaying judgment
• Developing and wielding a variety of strategies to engage thinking (reading, writing, seeing, listening, speaking)
• Engaging in the study of “the best that is known and thought in the world . . . irrespective of practice, politics, and everything of the kind” (Arnold).   

  • Instructional Practice of a liberal arts education at Ottawa University:

Practice at The College: At the residential college of Ottawa University, liberal arts education is understood as an integrated discourse that blends focus and breadth, crucially grounded in critical thinking.  To this end, all students at The College (residential campus) experience a shared core curriculum consisting of three interdisciplinary seminars as well as an array of course choices within each of eight breadth areas.  The eight distribution courses and the three seminars comprise 34 credit hours toward graduation—which means that when students leave Ottawa, whether enrolled in a degree in business or education or human services or biology, students speak the truth when they assert that they have had an education grounded in the liberal arts.  This further communicates to future employers that our graduates have a nimble mind, are not afraid to wrestle with complex ideas, and can adapt to the demands of a diverse and changing workplace.

Practice within the Adult and Online Programs (APOS): The Adult and Online campuses of Ottawa University are also deeply committed to graduating students who are liberally educated.  Students on the adult campuses are required to complete at least two courses in each of four-breadth areas:  Value/Meaning, Social/Civic, Art/Expression, and Science/Description.  A student graduating from The Adult and Online campuses will have a total of 32 credit hours of liberal arts course work as part of their degree.  These four breadth areas combined with the two required liberal arts core courses reflect a strong emphasis on integrated learning and ways of knowing that foster the art of critical thinking.   

Ottawa University seeks to prepare its graduates with a breadth of knowledge and ability to integrate that knowledge, as well as to see how knowledge and questions from across different disciplines can enrich understanding of academic fields of study and professional careers.   

Citation above:  Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism.