Liberal Arts Grant

"Liberal Arts Grant", October 2007

This article is going to be a mixture of straight fact telling (yay!) and scathing opinion (grrr). As you may be aware McMaster was given ten million dollars by the incoming chancellor, Lynton (Red) Wilson for the liberal arts. Actually, you probably aren’t really aware, as there was little-to-no publicity for this donation, in comparison to one during the summer months. It happened on October 29th incase you wish to hunt down some information on the event.

As both a Humanities and a Social Science student, I can tell you how badly McMaster needs this donation. Look at the Arts Quad: the tutorial rooms have broken chairs (or sometimes not enough for the amount of students), the elevators are constantly broken, the A/V equipment is very finicky, and aesthetically the color scheme is a little bit outdated (puke green and orange?). Luckily for us, Wilson’s donation is for the creation of a new liberal arts building. As stated in an article from Maclean’s, the building will be the home of four new initiatives, the Centre for Cognitive Studies in Liberal Arts, the Centre for Collaborations for Health, the Centre for Global Citizenship and a “Big Questions” institute; which will be used for interdisciplinary research relevant to current issues.

Wilson said “The contribution of education in the humanities and social sciences hasn’t always been recognized in the business community.” No kidding. That’s why there was no publicity given for his sizable donation. McMaster treats the Humanities and Social Sciences as subordinate disciplines in comparison to Commerce, Science, Engineering and the Health Sciences. Frankly, I’m tired of it. Our degrees are worth just as much as the others, although admittedly they are not as career-specific.

Although I will have graduated long before the Lynton Wilson Building for the Liberal Arts will be completed, hopefully this new initiative will remove some of the biases and prejudices students in Social Sciences and the Humanities face. Wilson continues in the McMaster Daily News Article saying, “These disciplines are important in the development of the next generation of entrepreneurs, policy makers, innovators and politicians, who in turn, will make us competitive and compassionate on a global scale”.

Wilson’s words are echoed similarly by Dr. Peter George, McMaster’s President: “… [T]he world equally needs people who are problem solvers at every level from the local to the global. With the foresight of benefactors like Red Wilson, we are creating a thoroughly engaging approach that will equip students with the diverse skills and critical thinking capabilities to make bold decisions in a complex world. Innovation doesn't come in a neat little box. It needs dialogue, debate and disagreement to create the spark that lead to enlightenment and discovery. We want to get students to think critically and to question the status quo and in the end, we will all be better for it.” Damn straight, Sir!