Liberal Arts Voices
Blog Instructions

If you are submitting an announcement, please select announcement on the submission form and be sure to include details about your event including date, time, and location.

If you are submitting a blog post, please select blog post on the submission form and follow the instructions below.

Introduction

Liberal Arts Voices is a space where students, faculty, and alumni can articulate the shared values of the liberal arts: excellence in communication, critical thinking, appreciation of diversity, and global perspective. More importantly, it is a forum where authors reflect on how these values are cultivated, practiced, and shared in their educational, personal, and professional pursuits.

Research shows that employers first and foremost hire people who can communicate clearly, work in diverse teams, think critically, and solve problems. Too often, though, college graduates deemphasize their mastery of these “soft skills” in favor of demonstrating technical proficiency and tangible experience to prospective employers. These “soft skills,” though, are the hallmarks of a liberal arts education; they set our graduates apart—not just as job candidates, but as citizens in a global society.

So at Liberal Arts Voices, we ask you to think about your experiences from a different perspective. For example, instead of telling us about the software applications you learned to use at your summer internship, we want to hear how your experience made you a stronger communicator, or enhanced your understanding of another culture, or taught you to think outside of the box. In short, we want to hear how the values of the liberal arts are playing out in your life.

Shared Values of the Liberal Arts

• Excellence in Communication
• Critical Thinking
• Appreciation of Diversity
• Global Perspective

Crafting Your Post

Your post should not just be a recounting of your experience, but a thoughtful reflection of how it enriched you as a student, as a professional, and as a human being.

Consider answering one or more of the following questions in your blog post.
1. How did your experience make you a stronger communicator?
2. How did your experience enhance your appreciation of diversity?
3. In what ways did your experience cultivate a global perspective?
4. How did your experience strengthen your critical thinking skills?
5. How did your education in the Liberal Arts prepare you for your experience?

General Blogging Tips

• Liberal Arts Voices is not a submission site for academic papers. Your post should be thoughtful and substantive, but the tone should be informal.
• If you are writing about an internship, get approval from your supervisor before you submit a post.
• Don’t try to cover everything in a single post. It might be helpful to think critically about just one of the shared values and how it relates to your experience.
• Be creative! We don’t want every post to appear as if it follows a specific formula, so feel free to experiment.
• Although there are no specific limits, we recommend that you keep your post under 500 words.

All submissions and comments are subject to the Liberal Arts Voices Social Media Policy