As a graduating senior, looking at Vassar's long list of distinguished alumni can be intimidating. This morning, it became even more intimidating. President Barack Obama appointed Jeffrey Goldstein '77 as Under Secretary of Treasury Department. (This is the most recent of several Vassar graduates serving in the Obama administration). Goldstein will lead the domestic finance division, which is charged with "developing policies and guidance for the Treasury Department activities in the areas of financial institutions, federal debt finance, finance regulation, and capital markets."
These tasks sound demanding, if not Herculean, during the worst economic crisis since the great depression. But the Brewer in me has faith. And not just because of his stellar graduate degrees. (After Vassar, Goldstein earned his Ph.D, M.Phil, and M.A. in economics from Yale University).
I have faith because he began his intellectual life in the liberal arts. Now more than ever, we need public servants with a broad background in the liberal arts. Albert Einstein once said that "It is not so important for a person to learn facts; he can learn those from books." A liberal arts education, Einstein argued, "should train the mind to think outside of textbooks." Vassar gives its students a moral and historical compass. As the past 16 months have shown the American people, questions of finance cannot be so easily separated from questions of education, conceptions of justice, and notions of equal citizenship. They cannot be so easily separated from the intellectual queries posed by philosophy, history, and political science.
If Vassar does its job (which it does), its students will leave Poughkeepsie with more questions than answers, more paths than we can follow, more ladders than we can climb. We leave without physical or intellectual or disciplinary boundaries. We'll be able to apply those broad philosophical questions of justice and equality and democracy to the most difficult problems in American society.
In other words, Vassar grads think outside the box. They do it well, and we do it quickly. And that gives me faith. If any area of American society surely needs some innovative, thoughtful, out-of-the-box thinking, it's the financial sector.
I wish Mr. Goldstein the best of luck in the months and years ahead. He has his work cut out for him, to be sure. But Brewers play to win.
1 comment:
I couldn't agree more with your conceptualization of a liberal arts education and its subsequent benefits. The reasons you state are precisely why I chose a liberal arts education at Vassar, even though I aspire to a professional career in television broadcast. The theoretical frameworks and skills we acquire at Vassar are invaluable assets that take time (say, 8 semesters) to fully develop; any job-specific technicalities that arise will be easily manageable when combined with them.
Or at least that's what I am and have been telling myself!
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