We admire any student who elects to spend one of his final semesters at Brown getting up at 6 a.m., working on his feet all day and forgoing the Graduate Center Bar to craft lesson plans at night.
For the few students each year who are part of the Undergraduate Teacher Education Program, that's what their days look like. The students who are enrolled in this program spend a semester in the classroom, living the life of a teacher while at the same time taking at least one course at Brown and maintaining connections to their friends. Their schedules are as grueling as any can be, but when they graduate - with a liberal arts degree - they are certified to teach in public schools in 44 states.
Though much of the power of a liberal arts curriculum resides in its lack of professional focus, we don't see the UTEP program as an aberration. The hallmark of a Brown education is that students can find and use the resources they need to accomplish the goals they set for themselves. UTEP students have realized their goals using resources that Brown makes available to help them craft an education aimed toward service.
It's not just teaching that can benefit from focused experiences before graduation. Indeed, confidence in a liberal arts education implies that every student is enrolled in a pre-professional program, whether or not we have any idea what our eventual professions will be. The educations we are crafting will sustain us in our careers - regardless of whether we put as much of ourselves into them as UTEP students must put into just their student teaching.
Students often say they want an opportunity to learn "a real skill" in addition to a liberal arts education. The UTEP program is an example of how Brown can provide both for its students. Other examples exist, but they are limited. Courses in the division of engineering, for example, focus on responsible entrepreneurship, and courses with service-learning components are scattered throughout departments.
The expansion of the UTEP program next year to include engineering will make this option open to a more diverse group of Brown students, which can only be good for the teaching profession. But in every field, the potential exists to anchor theories and abstractions to real-life situations and ethical decisions, and we encourage the University to continue to develop and expand the programs that aim to do so.
