立教大学

The Liberal Arts curriculum provides a practical education that fosters the skills needed in every field: versatility, strong analytical and communication skills, and an ethical world view. Not surprisingly, these are precisely the qualities that appeal to potential employers and graduate school programs. The liberal arts education promotes adaptability and intellectual curiosity, preparing students for a lifetime of learning. In this highly interconnected and rapidly changing world, there is no educational model that better prepares the next generation of leaders than does the Liberal Arts education.

While many educational models provide concentrated training in a specific area, the liberal arts model provides both curricular depth and breadth. In the GLAP program, students are required to take foundational courses in the humanities, business, and citizenship and to study abroad for an academic year before they select a specific major. In that way, GLAP students learn to be flexible learners capable of confronting a broad range of critical questions that span a variety of disciplines before choosing a major. Having cultivated critical breadth, fourth-year students then focus on a research topic to pursue in their senior capstone experience under the supervision of a GLAP faculty member. The educational breadth that students have acquired in their foundational courses and their year of study abroad thus enriches the perspectives that they bring to bear on their senior thesis research.

At the heart of the Liberal Arts Education is the ability to frame critical questions. Moreover, the liberal arts education teaches students how to ask the right kind of questions, the difficult “how?” and “why?” questions that have the potential to lead to real innovation. In the GLAP classes, including the foundational Tutorial course sequence, students are required to actively participate in class sessions and are encouraged to ask challenging questions and to work both independently and collaboratively to answer those questions. From Day 1, GLAP students develop the capacity to apply their skills at framing critical questions to a variety of situations.

In helping students to ask challenging questions, the GLAP program creates a community of learners, a community made up of GLAP students, both past and present, and of faculty. The GLAP program cultivates thinkers who can effectively evaluate information sources, navigate cultural differences, and work efficiently and ethically in seeking answers to those big questions. However, while encouraging students to be independent thinkers, the Liberal Arts principles upon which GLAP is founded also encourages collaboration, and throughout their four years in the program, students will work on projects with their peers and in close cooperation with the GLAP faculty.

In a world that faces an unprecedented range of complex problems, more than ever the world needs leaders who are the products of the precisely the kind of education that GLAP provides.