What is a central tension Boyer discusses in his chapter? Support your response with quote.
The central tension in Boyer’s discussion is the fact that students are too obsessed with getting jobs and being prepared for a career, that they forget about their education and the importance of the liberal arts. The liberal arts have taken a backseat to business and engineering degrees, because students are so obsessed with getting there degree and not learning the necessary skills that the liberal arts teach students for well rounded careers. According to Boyer, “Students, in their search for a secure future, have read the signals all too literally. And the liberal arts have taken a back seat to the more practical, career related training.” Students have forgotten about the importance of the liberal arts, and what it teaches.
2. What is Boyers’s “enriched major” and how he imagines it as a response to a key tension?
Boyers’s enriched major is encouraging students to explore different fields in depth. But to also help put a student’s specific field into perspective. The way it can be a response to key tensions is by instead of viewing “the major as competing with general education, we are convinced that these two essential parts of the baccalaureate program should be intertwined.” Instead of putting majors against each other, we should use them together.
