Opinion

“LEAP” program bolsters education

You may have heard at one time or another of something called the Wisconsin Idea. It goes back more than a century, and basically says this: the boundaries of the university should be the boundaries of the state. Wisconsin's institutions of higher education are the ideal incubators for social, scientific and business progress. Our universities led to advancements ranging from the first Kindergarten to the discovery of the benefits of Vitamin D to the beginnings of Social Security to workers' compensation. Even today, Wisconsin's universities and technical colleges are leading the way in renewable and alternative energy, biotechnology, and the list goes on.

That's why I'm proud to celebrate Higher Education Day in Wisconsin today, Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2006, and why I challenge our state government to continually renew its commitment to funding higher education and ensuring access for all.

That's also why I was not particularly surprised when Wisconsin became the first official pilot state for "Liberal Education and America's Promise."

LEAP is a brilliant intervention at a critical moment. LEAP forces our conversation about affordability, access, graduation rates and accountability to merge with an examination of the kinds of learning today's college graduates need. I have talked to a lot of people about higher education over the last year, and I have learned a lot. The nation's top CEOs told me they want the "360 degree person" who knows how to circle a problem, not the single axis student with deep but narrow learning. The engineering community already calls for T-shaped students, the vertical part representing traditional elements of an engineering degree and the cross bar underlining broader learning like ethics, global knowledge and intercultural literacy and strong communication and collaborative skills.

We need, then, a more precise definition of the essential outcomes of a liberal education for a student, state and nation. Thus LEAP. LEAP is an ambitious national campaign to champion the value of a liberal education — for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality.

Research underlines the challenges that lie ahead, notably the surprising lack of familiarity with the idea of a liberal education of so many students and their families, and a generalized distrust of all that is described as "liberal." Too many students think of their college education as a private rather than public good, ignoring the fact that the public and private sectors already underwrite a significant portion of the cost.

The University of Wisconsin is an ideal selection to pilot LEAP for many reasons that play to our state's strengths and weaknesses. Wisconsin boasts 20 liberal arts colleges, and a network of 47 Technical College and 26 UW campuses, all built at great sacrifice by our forebears who knew the importance of opening the doors to higher education. It now falls to us to keep those doors open.

But there are challenges. We have done a rather miserable job of enrolling and graduating low-income and minority students. UW-Madison was recently named the nation's No. 1 research university, but it is the flagship for a state that ranks 35th of 50 in terms of the percentage of workers age 25 and over who carry the credential of a bachelor's degree. We are a low-wage state; we know we need to increase the number of citizens carrying a bachelor's degree.

None of those challenges are insurmountable in a state that built a magnificent infrastructure for higher education. But by the same token, failing to overcome those challenges in a state so poised to overcome them is not excusable. I am confident we can and will recapture the public's imagination and re-center liberal education in our plans for Wisconsin's future, and rekindle the spirit of the Wisconsin Idea.

Today, I invite you to imagine a bold vision for Wisconsin's future as a leader in higher education. Together we will continue the work of the architects of the Wisconsin Idea. We can — and, I believe, we will — build a university system open to the children of new immigrants, children of the central city, young adults of every class and creed, to fuel this state's engine for growth.

Barbara Lawton is the Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin