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[zookers]

The Liberal Arts College system in the United States is fairly unique, insofar as academe is concerned.  You don't really find anything similar elsewhere (e.g. Canada).  Instead, most universities seem to be analogous to the R1 research schools in the US (graduate level, research intensive).

Not knowing a lot about the system in the UK and Europe, I'm curious if there are any institutions that have similarities to liberal arts colleges (e.g. primarily undergraduate schools that have a mix of teaching and research focus).

Please educate me on the academic ways of the Queen's country!  Thanks!

[bacardiandlime]

The Queen actually has many countries....

Universities in the UK are generally as you describe. Firstly (with the exception of Buckingham) there are no private institutions. Universities will have graduate and undergraduate programs, although different institutions may have different strengths or subject offerings.

Law and Medicine are undergraduate degrees (although graduates can enrol and there are some medical courses specifically for such students).

The idea of a liberal arts degree (a requirement to choose subjects from a range of disciplines, a set number of credits to graduate, which can be made up from an almost infinite combination of courses, and which can be built up to a Major), this is the system you will find in Australia. However, the institutions there are still what you might call research-focused (though not all would be at R1 standard), with graduate programs.

In the UK, specialisation in education occurs much earlier, so someone doing a degree in English in the UK will do... English. Whereas someone with an undergrad degree from a LAC (or University) in the States will have done a fair amount of English, s/he may also have done a class in each of intro psychology, Spanish, American history, Asian culture, statistics, and biology.

Following on from such specialised undergrad, graduate degrees are also very narrow. The PhD is thesis-only, and Masters degrees - even those which are taught (some are also research-only), have a fairly limited focus. The AOS/AOC idea that Americans have doesn't really exist in the UK (for many/most people they would be the same thing!). If someone has a PhD in British politics in the 1850s, they are probably qualified to teach British 19th century history. They certainly will not have done graduate level courses in history of other regions or periods, to be able to teach these subjects at undergrad level.

[deleteplease]

For Canada, would Mount Allison count?

The Liberal Arts College system in the United States is fairly unique, insofar as academe is concerned.  You don't really find anything similar elsewhere (e.g. Canada). 

[iomhaigh]

If someone has a PhD in British politics in the 1850s, they are probably qualified to teach British 19th century history. They certainly will not have done graduate level courses in history of other regions or periods, to be able to teach these subjects at undergrad level.

Interesting.  So, how does this translate into faculty specialities?  If the students are all this focused, then is there a need for a "generalist" faculty member who can teach multiple areas, or are all the faculty members equally as specialized as the students? 

[bacardiandlime]

Well, faculty members tend to be specialised. You can find some people who have covered broad swathes with their own research, and are interested in teaching across a broad area too. This will vary a lot by institution, so please check departmental websites to get an idea of how it works at a particular university. But in general, faculty members are pretty specialised. The early modern Britain guy does...Early modern Britain. He certainly won't be offering a course in Latin American history or colonialism in Africa.
HOWEVER, whereas the Europeanists (and Americanists) are pretty hemmed in by specialisation, the people in 'World' history often cover broader areas with their teaching (whether this is by choice or necessity - ie being the only person in a small department who doesn't do Europe or North America - is another issue). Looking at university curricula, you will still tend to find courses defined quite clearly into European (and temporal/regional subsets of same), American, and OTHER. Another point to bear in mind, is that depending on the institution, a faculty member in the UK will tend to have less freedom to design their own courses than in the USA, so may be teaching to a syllabus designed by someone else (or indeed by a committee).

[iomhaigh]

Interesting as well.  Thanks for the insights!

[zookers]

For Canada, would Mount Allison count?

The Liberal Arts College system in the United States is fairly unique, insofar as academe is concerned.  You don't really find anything similar elsewhere (e.g. Canada). 

From what I know about the Canadian system, the smaller schools like Mount Allison, Bishops, Wilfred Laurier, etc... are closer to the comprehensive, primarily-undergraduate universities of the US.  They are still publicly-funded institutions, and as such have a lingering propensity to want to become the next "Harvard of the North" (to secure federal $$).  I have known several colleagues at smaller Canadian schools who have seen their departments filled with pure researchers who can't teach (or communicate effectively) if their life depended on it.  A liberal arts college would not entertain such a hiring practice.

[bernardblack]

In some ways it's a bit of an over-simplification to talk about the "UK" system, as Scottish higher ed. differs in many important respects from the rest of the Union.

The specialisation mentioned by other posters is rather less pronounced in Scottish institutions, where first degrees generally take four years and the first two years include at least two minor subjects which may or may not be closely related to the major subject. (Actually, most graduates from Scottish universities have a so-called "undergraduate masters" as their first degree - a subsequent masters degree would be an MLitt or MPhil). Not quite the same as a degree from a US liberal arts college, but not as narrow as a single-subject BA/BSc from an English institution.

It is possible to do general arts degrees at some institutions, but these tend to be the least respected/prestigious universities.

Almost all institutions of higher education are universities, which by definition offer both masters and doctoral degrees and are "research institutions", though they vary massively in quality. University Colleges are satellite institutions of universities that do focus much more on undergraduate education (perhaps exclusively), and tend to be from the lower reaches of the league tables (University College London and the University Colleges of Oxford and Durham Universities aren't "University Colleges" in this sense).

[wegie]

It is possible to do general arts degrees at some institutions, but these tend to be the least respected/prestigious universities.

I think Durham might disagree with the above definition.

Having said which, Durham and the OU are the only two places I can think of offhand in England that really do allow considerable breadth of study.

[zookers]

As a follow-up to my own post from earlier (after doing some research for my own interest), there are schools in Canada that can probably compare to US liberal arts colleges.  First off, there are the University Colleges like in the UK, which are growing in number.  These seem to be more in the western portion of the country, but are in line with 4-year undergraduate institutions.  The University of Toronto has a University College, but that's not the same thing (it's a division of the school in the British tradition).

Also, there is a new trend in developing actual private liberal arts schools in Canada (all schools currently in existence are public).  Quest University Canada (www.questu.ca) in British Columbia claims to be exactly this model.  I would anticipate more of these developing as the years go on.

[deleteplease]

Zookers,

Mt. Allison, in Canada, rather prides itself on following a SLAC sort of model. Several Canadian universities do have echoes of the Oxbridge collegiate system (it's not new -- Canadian anglophone education was founded by people from the UK)  -- some with more success than others. At U of T, Trinity has a real collegiate identity, as do a few of the other smaller colleges --  UC is among the least "collegiate" in style.

For "Harvard of North" -- that's really an aspiration for U of T and a limited number of other schools. I don't think Wilfred Laurier (which has many fine teachers) or Dalhousie or Mt Allison would claim anything of the sort. There is a wide spectrum of teaching vs. research orientation at Canadian universities -- it can even vary by department within a university and by time (departments can shift back and forth in priorities depending on hires).

The private for-profit institutions are not at all similar to SLACs -- they are more vocationally oriented. Also, remember that "college" (unless it's within a university) in Canada is equivalent to "Community College" (US) or Further education (Brit), not to "small university with primarily undergraduate students studying liberal arts". The Colleges, in fact, tend to offer post-B.A. professional certificates as well as programmes which are alternatives to the BA.

[mischt]

sorry, but aren't ALL universities in Canada publicly-funded?
Also: at University of Toronto you choose a "college" with which you are affiliated (they are University College, Trinity, St. Michael's, Victoria, New and Innis) and this has nothing to do with the "American Liberal Arts College" but is in the British tradition.

[mischt]

woops, sorry, all of that was in the previous post!

[expatinuk]

It is possible to do general arts degrees at some institutions, but these tend to be the least respected/prestigious universities.

I think Durham might disagree with the above definition.

Having said which, Durham and the OU are the only two places I can think of offhand in England that really do allow considerable breadth of study.

Keele....

[euro_trash]

There are certainly SLAC type universities in Europe - I work at one. 

They are generally out of the mainstream at the moment.  I do expect the SLAC model to get a lot stronger in Europe for a couple of reasons:

1.  The Bologna process is forcing EU area nations to move towards the Bachelors degree as the standard degree in higher education, instead of the Masters.  Given the absence of a Bachelors model in Europe, many EU countries will borrow the American SLAC model.

2.  The EU needs more broadly educated citizens given the exceedingly tight labour market.  An example: if one studies sociology in France, one can only really be a sociologist.  This basically means unemployability.  A SLAC education would help educated Europeans be more competitive in such a market.