For the last several years, we have organized our college magazine around a series of themes chosen to reflect issues, challenges, problems, and perspectives central to our contemporary world. The disciplines in the liberal arts can provide lenses and perspectives on technology, the environment, health, and identity. These perspectives can help us as individuals, and the communities we live in, see productive pathways through increasingly contested terrain.
The theme for this issue of CLA Magazine is “voice.” In one sense, this theme represents a traditional view of the liberal arts as building skills for individuals to find their own unique way of expressing their voice through self-reflection, critical thinking, and effective communication. “Voice” in this sense expresses our own identities by helping us find the choice word, the creative vocabulary, and structure and rhythm of sentences that belong uniquely to us. But “voice” can also emphasize finding difference: by reading widely and seeing diversely, we gain the ability to understand how others are different, how we build from and out of a longer tradition. In this way, a sensitivity to voice becomes a key thread in the fabric of citizenship.
Over the last eight years as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and as a citizen of the university, I’ve used my voice to elevate the importance of a liberal arts education to a world-renowned research institution, to support and boost our faculty in their research and scholarship, and to champion the team in our college who are working hard on everything from equity to student success to the Clark revitalization.
Together, we have accomplished great things. We have improved the salaries and working conditions for our contract-continuing-adjunct faculty, we have increased financial and administrative support for the research and creative artistry pursued by our faculty, we have grown our undergraduate student enrollment while also improving retention, we have launched our professional masters’ degrees, and executed a successful thematic year of democracy and civic engagement.
Across our campus, our community, and our world, the voice of the liberal arts is critical to our reflections of and conversations about what it means to be human. As we enter 2024 and what proves to be a contentious election year, it is our responsibility to attend to the complexities of many voices and to distill thoughtful, informed approaches to an age defined by deep contradictions in what we once saw has fundamental, bedrock foundations for the university: viewpoint diversity and free speech, rules of fairness and tolerance, the necessity and role of the liberal arts in today’s university.
It has been an honor to be the administrative voice of the College of Liberal Arts at CSU. The people here, the work they do, the way in which they support one another and the students is extraordinary, which makes my decision to leave incredibly difficult. I will be headed to Iowa State University in the next few months, and CLA will get a new champion. In the interim, Dr. Elissa Braunstein, professor of economics, will take the helm. She is a well-regarded scholar with experience with state government and at the United Nations. The University will conduct a nationwide search for a permanent replacement, and I am sure that the quality of candidates will be excellent. CSU and the College of Liberal Arts are tremendous places to study, to work, and to learn.
I do hope you take time to read this magazine about voice, and, if you’re local, to participate in the events we are hosting for our thematic year of democracy and civic engagement. It is our duty to pose the difficult questions, have the challenging conversations, and provide opportunities for our students to learn from a variety of voices – and develop their own voice – so that our democracy is maintained and improved.
Thank you for your engagement in the life of CLA. It has been an honor for me to work on the College’s behalf.
Sincerely,
Benjamin C. Withers, Dean
Professor of Art History
College of Liberal Arts