Liberal Arts Education not as useless as some may think
By Jennifer Palmberg
The Collegian
The College of Arts and Humanities is wrapping up the fall semester portion of the Intellectual Artistic Exploration Lecture Series on Thursday with a salute to liberal arts.
The college, with the aid of Phi Beta Kappa Society Couper Scholar, has invited well-known nineteenth-century British literature and art specialist, Robert L. Patten, a Lynette S. Autry professor in humanities at Rice University to share his wisdom.
Patten said education is conceived for a lifetime and not just for a job. He studied the origin of liberal education in the nineteenth century “as a curriculum that would address cognitive, ethical and spiritual issues.”
He will share his research on how liberal studies promotes thoughtfulness in people, how liberal arts and studies affects society today and if it is still a valuable and applicable field of education.
Patten received his B.A. from Swarthmore College and his M.A. and Ph.D from Princeton University in the department of English and for studies in English Literature. He is the director of The Dickens Project at University of California, Santa Cruz, the treasurer of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, a South-Central Representative for the Council of Editors of Learned Journals.
He is also a published author of multiple books and articles regarding Charles Dickens and nineteenth century British literature including Charles Dickens and His Publishers, George Cruikshank’s Life, Times and Art and about 30 entries on Victorian artists, authors and publishers to Oxford University Press’s New Dictionary of National Biography in 2004.
His works have received great reviews such as “I marveled at the detail in Robert Patten’s “George Cruikshank’s Life, Times and Art: Vol. 1,” from William Feaver, The Observer and “Patten’s book enthralls from the first page,” John Carey, Sunday Times.
“He’s a Dickens specialist,” said Jose Diaz, the associate dean of The College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State. “He’s very well-respected in his field of study. I’m looking forward to meeting him.
“Liberal arts is a huge field. It’s a broad study that encourages creative thinking. It’s very different from a lot of other majors.”
Diaz said Patten has a full schedule planned for Thursday. He will be visiting English and honors natural thinking courses throughout the day and will have open office hours for anyone who would like to meet or speak with him in PB 390 from noon to 2 p.m.
Patten’s presentation “Beyond Vocational Training: Liberal Arts as a Lifetime Degree” on Thursday, Dec. 1 from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Alice Peters Auditorium.
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