Discovery & Engagement Discovery & Engagement

LIBERAL ARTS MAGAZINE Spring 2004
2
Purdue faculty, staff, and students
engage with neighborhoods and cities —
within the state of Indiana, and beyond.
From the President
I
am pleased that the School of Liberal Arts has chosen to focus
on discovery and engagement in this issue—these go hand in hand,
and are an integral part of our mission as a land-grant university.
Purdue faculty, staff, and students engage with neighborhoods and
cities, within the state of Indiana, and beyond. Service they provide
can be, in and of itself, educational; but service performed by qualified,
excited students and led by committed faculty members with
vision can be absolutely transforming.
The School of Liberal Arts has many examples of this transforming
type of engagement. Individual SLA faculty members, staff
members, and students are working to improve neighborhoods,
helping children learn in public school classrooms, and volunteering
at nursing homes. Larger groups work together to find ways to
improve lives. Whether it is a design classroom in Visual and
Performing Arts tackling the problem of how to encourage children
to use the city bus system, or an English class cataloging previously
unarchived documents, their activities are challenging, useful, and
of course educational.
Our students learn many things while studying for a Liberal
Arts degree at Purdue University. They read great literature, write
papers, spend time in laboratories, and study our history and
culture. They do these things to become educated human beings.
The time they spend serving and learning in their communities
prepares them not only to be educated, but to be educated with a
purpose: to be adults who will be engaged in worthwhile causes
throughout their lives.
Martin C. Jischke