Words have consequences. When we talk about the skills students learn in the liberal arts, what are we saying when we call them “soft”?
First, as I have frequently said, if “soft skills” were all that soft, employers and CEOs wouldn’t be clamoring for them and they wouldn’t be so hard to find. More importantly, “soft” implies that these skills are somehow squishy, touchy-feely things that you just “pick up” by osmosis rather than acquire through application and dedication. You know, like the “hard sciences.”
When you call LA skills “soft,” you’re complicit in a value scheme that has placed these skills lower — but “the market” is telling you otherwise. So obviously, we need a better term.
When I’m in a more militantly liberal arts mood, I have proposed “hermeneutic” skills, because the core of the skill set revolves around the ability to recognize interpretive frameworks and operate within — and translate between — these frameworks. That is the essence of “cultural sensitivity,” Interpersonal skills, and even good communication and presentation skills. (How can you speak to this audience without a good grasp of how they will interpret your presentation?)
Some of my twitter conversation partners have suggested terms like critical skills and professional skills. There are good reasons for these terms, too — but let me tell a story.
I had a conversation with an Austin CEO who was extolling the value of the liberal arts student because, she said, they have good “critical problem-solving skills.” I asked her if she would mind telling me what she means by “critical problem-solving skills” (mainly because it seemed like an amalgam of critical thinking and problem-solving skills). She said something quite revealing: “I need people who can size up the values of my company and solve problems within those values.”
That is not what we in Academia generally mean by either critical thinking or problem-solving skills. But here’s the irony: The ability to do what she wants is precisely what a grounding in liberal arts prepares people to do. And the key ingredient is a facility with interpretive frameworks—hence my favorite term, hermeneutic skills.
Whatever we call them, a new day is dawning for the liberal arts. Employers, community leaders, and governments are recognizing these skills as needed assets, not optional extras. It’s time to stop apologizing. Liberal arts can save the world.
