So What CAN You Do With a History Major: Part 20

Go into business.

I have always wondered why business majors do not flock to the history department to declare double majors or pick up a history minor. How can you major in something like “International Business” and know nothing about the history of the world?

At the recent meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities two scholars made a strong case for the need for business programs to be “more deeply infused with the virtues of a traditional liberal-arts education.”

William Sullivan and Anne Colby, both senior scholars at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, argued, based on a study of business programs at ten colleges, that even at the best business programs in the country students perceive “their liberal-arts courses as irrelevant to their career plans or as generally unserious.”

“Students need to experience engagement with the world so that they grasp the practical, personal, and moral significance of what they are learning,” Ms. Colby and Mr. Sullivan wrote in a recent essay.

Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Colby’s project will be summarized in a forthcoming book that is tentatively titled “Preparing for Business, Learning for Life: Liberal Arts and Undergraduate Business Education.” The foundation expects to publish the book in 2011.

Calling all Messiah College business majors: You can find me in Boyer 258 starting on Monday. Let’s talk!