The Way of Liberal Arts Education/Path to Education

The Preparatory Office of Dharma Drum College invited Dr. Chi Chun, Visiting Professor of Chengchi University, Graduate Institute of Development Studies, National Chengchi University to give a lecture at the Merit and Virtue College, WuZin Hall, in the morning of March 29, 2011. Dr. Chi is the former Dean and a Professor of the Political Science Department of the Occidental College of Los Angeles, California, USA. The topic was “General Education to Whole Education: Starting from How Williams College Beat Harvard”

Professor Chi opined that the core value of any university and the ideal of higher education should be Whole Education. The goal is to equip students with logical and critical thinking and to calibrate their ability to differentiate and contemplate. Besides the basic curriculum and practical knowledge, the infusion of courage, discernment, and comprehensive views are also necessary to avoid making students slaves of “blindly knowing.”

The reason such spirits can inspire and deeply influence students is grounded in the total involvement and sacrifices of the professors and students together, creating a unique learning environment, like spring rain nourishing all things. Such type of education lets students learn naturally as if “a light breeze, which gently caresses the face, without form or trace, but the recipient feels with the heart and spirit.” Professor Chi has been pushing the movement of tutorial education since 2010 when he came back to Taiwan.

Professor Chi has high expectations that accomplished students who have taken tutorials will come back to the College to contribute their specialties. He also encourages the next generation to attend the College, and to transmit the ideal of Liberal Arts from generation to generation. Professor Chi believes that Dharma Drum University is especially equipped, with its unique faculties and environment, to implement Whole Education. Therefore, he expects to see, in the near future, the creation and realization of the core values of Whole Education by the first Chanyue (Joy of Chan) College, under the joint efforts of the faculty and students of Dharma Drum University.