What can be learned from ‘liberal arts colleges’?

Just a note for future research. What can we learn from liberal arts colleges, in terms of:

  • their founding, original mission and early history
  • their creation of intentional, residential communities for education
  • their emphasis on the pastoral and pedagogical relationship between teacher and student
  • their decline or gradual conversion to offer ‘professional’ degrees
  • their variety and emphasis on locale and community
  • their institutional form (i.e. size, governance, mission, financing)
  • their deliberate emphasis on an anti-disciplinary education that combines the arts, natural and physical sciences.