I learned about Awuah through a presentation he did in 2007 for TED. He recounts his story growing up in Ghana. Once he had a particularly close call with the military whereby he narrowly escaped with his life. He eventually attended Swarthmore College, a top liberal arts institution, and worked as a program manager for Microsoft for over a decade. Seeing, however, the turmoil in his homeland, he became uncomfortable with the comfort of Seattle, and knew he needed to return to Ghana. What did he do? He founded a liberal arts college.
His reasoning for doing this is straightforward. What, says Awuah, does Africa need the most? Based on his experiences growing up in Ghana, he knew that what Africa needs the most is leaders. But not just any kind of leader. Africa needs leaders who are both ethical and are critical thinkers.
One of the central problems of development, as almost any experienced foreign aid worker will tell you, is corruption. Money is poured in to, for instance, Haiti, and it is usually just as quickly poured into the pockets of corrupt officials. Second, development needs critical thinking. Sustainable development needs idea generators who can think broadly about the complexities of society and find solutions to vexing problems. My good friend David Befus, who has worked for decades in job creation and development economics in the two-thirds world, has said (I paraphrase), “Poor people don’t need more loans. What they need are good business ideas. This is the rare commodity in the developing world.”
Awuah believes these are the very things that a liberal arts education provides. In contrast to a technical education, which provides job training only for a specific job, the study of literature, science, history, math, and philosophy provides the core for both a broad consideration of the world and the pursuit of “the good life.” As Ashesi University College, this core of studies is the foundation then for the specific application of these disciplines, whether it be in business administration or computer science.
Now, I’ve tried for several weeks to get Awuah’s university out of my head, but I can’t. How counterintuitive: there are poor people starving and without shelter, and the best solution to this problem is to take the to 15% of a society and send them to a liberal arts college. Yet it is brilliant…and revolutionary. And this is why.
First, sustainable development needs ethical leaders. All the aid programs in the world don’t work without ethical leaders who actually care about the good of their people. The liberal arts college trains students over time how the great thinkers have grappled with questions of truth, goodness and beauty. At a residential liberal arts college, students are taken out of their context for a period of time (up to 4 years), and are brought into a context that considers goodness, not only job-specific tasks. A liberal arts college can immerse students in a transformative context that has the potential shape hearts and minds.
Second, a liberal arts college connects ethical ideals to specific disciplines. Contrast what most missionaries have done in the developing world. They plant churches (as they should) and Bible colleges for training pastors . Although Bible colleges and seminaries are good, they don’t connect the truth of God with fields like mathematics, science, literature, or history. A Christian liberal arts college can do this, and bring the gospel to bear on broad swaths of human experience. Ethical practice in business, politics, and education, for example, find their source in theology, which is studied in the same context. Although Awuah’s university isn’t specifically Christian, it is making the attempt to connect goodness with professional preparation.
Third, sustainable development needs competent and creative indigenous leaders. The leaders must come from the country itself – yet many of them will have to go a transformation process. This process is what a liberal arts education provides. It’s a process of teaching leaders to think. We in the West should be the first to admit that there are no obvious answers to issues like global poverty or climate change. What is desperately needed is a class of ethical, critical thinkers who engage the interdisciplinary nature of social issues and find solutions that are not readily present. Making connections between disciplines is what the liberal arts graduate does.
Awuah has made me think twice about the nature of Christian mission in the two-thirds world. Perhaps a solid investment in a Christian liberal arts college would be a better use of development dollars than World Vision or Compassion International. Perhaps not. But Awuah has to make us think: what are we doing to form the next generation of ethical, creative leaders? The answer to this question ought to form the foundation of an international development strategy.
Finally, what about the graduates of Ashesi University College? Awuah reports that they have a higher job placement rate than any of their technically-trained counterparts. Broadly-educated means broadly capable of the highest levels of leadership.
No comments:
Post a Comment