News

Press Release

HOW CAN LIBERAL EDUCATION GIVE BUSINESS MAJORS A BOOST?
STUDY TO EXAMINE INTEGRATION OF PROFESSIONAL GOALS WITH LIBERAL ARTS EDUCATION

New York, NY (March 29, 2007) - A major project examining how to integrate the benefits of a liberal arts education into undergraduate business programs was announced today by the Teagle Foundation. Teagle provided a grant of $375,000 to match a similar amount from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The three-year project, run by Carnegie, will focus on developing models that schools can use to enrich their students' educations and transform their business programs.

"We teach students in most business programs a great deal about the bottom line," said W. Robert Connor, president of the Teagle Foundation. "But to really prepare them to become leaders in our increasingly competitive global marketplace, we also need to provide them with the capacity for analytical thinking, the intellectual depth, ethical understanding, and creativity, that come from a liberal arts education."

The project was developed in response to the fact that increasing numbers of undergraduates are majoring in professional fields, particularly business. The central problem that will be addressed is that on most college campuses students majoring in professional fields are required to take a few courses from scores of offerings in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences, but no effort is made to integrate the aims of the liberal arts with the aims of professional education.

The project, which begins in July, will be directed by Anne Colby, Thomas Ehrlich, and William Sullivan, senior scholars at Carnegie, with the support of research assistant, Jonathan Dolle. It builds on considerable prior Carnegie Foundation work, including studies of professional preparation in higher education, of ethical and social responsibility as educational goals, and of integration of learning in undergraduate education.

For further information, visit the Carnegie Foundation's website at www.carnegiefoundation.org.

About the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of Congress, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center with the primary mission "to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher and the cause of higher education." The improvement of teaching and learning is central to all of the Foundation's work. The Foundation is located in Stanford, California.

About the Teagle Foundation
The Teagle Foundation is committed to providing intellectual and financial leadership in the effort to promote and strengthen liberal education. For additional information about the Teagle Foundation and its programs, please visit our website at www.teaglefoundation.org.

Teagle Contact:
Donna Heiland
212-373-1972