University of Miami - Ibis Yearbook (Coral Gables, FL)

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The college of liberal arts of the University of Miami constitutes the central unit of the whole University organization. In this college there is offered the training in the field of higher education that prepares young men and women for the most enlightened citizenship. There is also offered the training that leads toward various lines of professional and technical service in life careers. In educational theory, of course, a clear distinction is drawn between liberal education and vocational education; but the liberalizing studies in college in literature and science and history and philosophy develop understandings and insights that have extensive vocational values. €1Thus many students in the Arts College, especially during the two upper years of the course, having reached a vocational decision, are pursuing sequences of studies for both liberal education and also prevocational training toward various higher callings. In this way the College of Liberal Arts is supplying to one group of students their pre-medical work, to another group their pre-engineering work, to a third group pre-law work, to a fourth group pre-journalistic training, and to other groups similar prevocational preparation. Accordingly the Arts College has for practical minded persons some directly practical purposes; and. as our American universities expand and develop, the curricula presented in the Arts College point forward in various directions to the circle of professional and technical schools that grow up eventually around the central College of Liberal Arts, ft Our College of Liberal Arts offers a liberal array of courses in many fields of study, varying from accounting to zoology. Through every year a great many combinations of studies are possible, as the files of student cards in the Registrar’s office amply demonstrate. Moreover the regulations governing the award of degrees, in presenting certain required subjects, certain distribution electives, the major and minor requirements, and the free electives to finish out the total of credits for degree, are so arranged as to insure for every graduate a broad range of interests combined with the discipline of prolonged and concentrated study in at least two fields. And finally, the cultural life of the whole University has been greatly enriched by the excellent work of the University symphony orchestra, the student band, and the department of dramatics.