Management as a Liberal Art

By Bluford H. Putnam and Edward I. Stevens

Many educators claim that America is losing its liberal-arts colleges. Certainly it is true that for several years the trend in higher education has been toward expanding professional programs at the expense of traditional liberal-arts curricula. This trend has many causes, but it is firmly grounded in the interests of students in the 1970's and 1980's, who overwhelmingly chose professional preparatory programs, especially those in management, instead of the liberal arts. Only