Conflict and Change 247
than are typically brought to bear on it. As noted in Greater Expectations, “Liberal
education is an educational philosophy rather than a body of knowledge, specific
courses, or type of institution” (Association of American Colleges and Universi-
ties 2002, 25).
The more one sees rigorous learning as the acquisition of intellectual powers,
cognitive skills, values, competencies, and dispositions mediated by a variety of
subjects, the less significant the dichotomy between liberal arts and professional
fields seems. The connections between the two can be constructed through the
articulation of a shared set of demanding educational objectives. From this per-
spective, liberal education shows itself to be powerfully practical, and professional
studies to involve a series of crucial theoretical issues. Studies of both the theoreti-
cal and practical issues in leadership, professional ethics, quantitative reasoning,
organizational culture and behavior, policy development, problem solving, and
decision making provide examples of contexts for interdisciplinary work involv-
ing the social sciences, humanities, and professional fields (cf. Bok 2006). If an
institution develops a major strategic initiative to excel in creating a productive
and distinctive relationship between the theory and practice of liberal and pro-
fessional education, it could achieve a goal of enduring importance that creates
a virtuous circle out of a traditional sphere of conflict. With little doubt, it will
find that its passion for the task will come from threads of connection to its own
existing or emerging practices and the distinguishing characteristics that are
rooted in its identity.
These examples of the tensions between teaching and research and liberal and
professional education suggest a method that can be applied to a large variety of
similar polarities. In creating an authentic and compelling sense of institutional
purpose and vision, the process of strategic leadership is able to meet a series of
demanding requirements. It requires intellectual self-consciousness and concep-
tual depth, speaks to the human need for coherence, provides a sense of common
enterprise, analyzes changing trends in education, and articulates worthwhile
possibilities for the future that grow out of a legacy. In doing so, it motivates
and obligates members of the organization to come together around common
goals. As leadership must, it also shoulders the task of reconciling conflict. Being
strategic, it brings to each form of conflict a sense of the larger world and the
institution’s place in it. It gathers these insights into a disciplined process of
sense making that create new integrations that end tiresome debates and in new
articulations of values that transcend the conflict. Academic commitments to
quality and autonomy become embodied in organizational forms and practices
that are necessary to them, and those forms in turn bear the imprint of intrinsic
values. As a source of both responsibility and shared meaning, the institution’s
narrative of identity and aspiration empowers the continuous effort to create
new forms of authentic balance, synthesis, and commitment. We often use its
methods of building consensus even when we do not do so consciously and
systematically.