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For Lynch School of Education and Human Development Associate Professor Chris Higgins, it was a conversation that changed the trajectory of his career, and launched a book.
Some years ago, before he came to Boston College, Higgins met with an undergraduate who had recently, and reluctantly, dropped his computer science major. Describing his situation to Higgins, the sophomore could barely bring himself to say that he was 鈥渦ndeclared,鈥� a status he clearly considered shameful.
This moment crystallized for Higgins how society had lost sight of one of the essential purposes of higher education: the open-ended search for self-understanding. At that moment, he resolved to write a book that would help young people embrace this spirit of discovery, proudly declaring their 鈥渦ndeclaredness.鈥�
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how moments like this still manage to surprise me,鈥� said Higgins, the founding chair of the Lynch School鈥檚 Formative Education Department. 听鈥淚 am well aware of the stigma. In the modern multi-university, 鈥榞en ed鈥� is just a toll booth on the credential highway. Students get the message, loud and clear: Pick a lane and step on the gas.鈥�
Chris Higgins (Peter Julian)
Higgins鈥� reminiscence of this encounter forms the prologue to his recently published book, Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Education, which comprises three lengthy essays and three shorter pieces that discuss the need to promote a form of learning that is 鈥渦ncoerced and unscripted.
鈥淚 hope Undeclared might speak to other students who are anxious because they have not yet managed to package themselves for the job market,鈥� said Higgins. 鈥淎nd for those whose undergraduate days are behind them, the book offers an invitation to get reacquainted with your inner sophomore.鈥�
To Higgins, the distressed student exemplified what he calls 鈥渢he efficiency of our miseducation. Here he was, beginning his sophomore year, and he was already mis-categorizing the virtue of the quest as the vice of indecision. He had come to the university hoping for something different from his earlier schooling.听 Instead, he found himself caught up in what was just a more advanced version of the same old game of 鈥榮tudenting鈥欌�攇rinding from exam to exam and from pre-req to pre-req.鈥� 听
In writing the book, Higgins drew on the variety of educational environments that he鈥檚 experienced, as student or teacher, from middle school through college. 听
The initial essay, 鈥淪oul Action: The Search for Integrity in General Education,鈥� addresses what it would mean to take holistic education earnestly. 鈥淲ide Awake: Aesthetic Education at Black Mountain College鈥� describes one of the great experiments in the history of higher education: North Carolina鈥檚 Black Mountain College, which during its 24 years of operation (the college closed in 1957) explored democratic self-governance and a form of holistic, general education rooted in the arts. 鈥淛ob Prospects: Vocational Formation as Humane Learning鈥� traces the lines of formation from the university into the work world.
Higgins calls the shorter pieces 鈥渋nterludes鈥濃�攁n allusion to shorter musical passages punctuating a longer composition. 鈥淐ampus Tour鈥� provides a survey of the distortions of the university when it鈥檚 transformed into a business, while 鈥淣ew Student Orientation鈥� addresses the formidable drive to instrumentalize learning. 鈥淧ublic Hearing鈥� outlines how the defunding of public universities corresponds with the deterioration of the arts and humanities.
鈥淭he three essays work to expand the higher educational imagination, recovering ideals that have been shoved aside or replaced by counterfeits,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he interludes intervene where we are prone to lapse into romanticization.鈥�
Ultimately, Undeclared addresses the question of how to prepare people to think of their work as a vehicle for their own ongoing development, said Higgins, who discussed the issue at a recent educational forum: 鈥淰ocational formation continues beyond just undergraduate preparation for it,鈥� he said at the event. 鈥淲e hope our students continue to learn not only for their jobs, but through their work. And we need to help them reflect on the goods served by their calling and to recognize when their work has become an ethical or existential dead end.鈥�
Joining 51茶馆 in 2019 not only helped Higgins complete the book, but afforded him opportunities to begin enacting its ideas.
听鈥淚 jumped at the chance to come to 51茶馆 because it鈥檚 a place that truly believes that undergraduate education should be formative. Here it is understood that questions of meaning, value, and purpose are central to the educational conversation. If you鈥檙e not considering those questions, then it might be instruction, socialization, or training, but it鈥檚 not education.鈥�
Recently he has begun working with the division of Student Affairs to explore and enhance the formative dimensions of residential life at 51茶馆.
鈥淎t many universities, there is a real divide between living and learning,鈥� Higgins said. 鈥淎t 51茶馆 we make sure the quest for meaning and purpose extends beyond the classroom, creating spaces where students can engage in intellectual exploration and personal growth throughout the campus.
鈥�51茶馆 is obviously very different than Black Mountain College,鈥� said Higgins. 鈥淲hat the two institutions share is the idea of college as a community of persons-in-process, supporting each other鈥檚 efforts to make sense of ourselves, to clarify what matters, to carve out meaningful projects, and to organize our talents in the service of something worthwhile.鈥澨� 听
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