A 2016 National Public Radio story was headlined: “Resisting the Corporate University.” Critics decry the university’s hard shift away from the Liberal Arts towards vocationalism: preparing you for a job in a vast and, as they see it, controlling corporate empire. You may applaud that vocational direction, but the concern is that you are left ill-prepared to be a good citizen able to pursue a full personal, civic, intellectual, and cultural life. They say that profit-seeking has replaced the search for truth as the central goal of university aspiration and practice. Some of those critics even argue that business schools have no legitimate place on college campuses. Have these thoughts perhaps crossed your mind? If you are a business student, have you wondered at times whether your studies have failed to examine your core being and failed to sufficiently challenge your life view? 

Question

The Wall Street Journal talked with critics, including corporate recruiters, who are increasingly skeptical about the value of an undergraduate business degree: Now faculty members, school administrators and corporate recruiters are questioning the value of a business degree at the undergraduate level. The biggest complaint: The undergraduate degrees focus too much on the nuts and bolts of finance and accounting and don’t develop enough critical thinking and problem-solving skills through long essays, in-class debates and other hallmarks of liberal-arts courses. Do you think your business courses should have a stronger liberal arts flavor? Explain.