Providing a Technology Edge for Liberal Arts Students

Students’ employability has long been a challenging issue for many liberal arts colleges and universities. There has been widespread recognition recently that liberal arts students are highly valued as employees. But there is also a public perception that liberal arts students may not be well equipped to face the challenges of employment in the information age. This study is a collaborative effort among three Canadian universities: the University of Alberta, the University of British Columbia, and the University of New Brunswick. At these universities students were surveyed across the liberal arts disciplines, which were defined broadly to include the fields of fine arts, the humanities, and the social science disciplines. (In the remainder of this paper, we use the term “arts” to include all of the liberal arts.) The focus of investigation was the popular perception that arts students “have fallen behind,” or are languishing on the wrong side of a “digital divide” with respect to their computer skills, and as a consequence are at a disadvantage when it comes to employment success immediately after graduation.