Former UI President Skorton urges blended education

IOWA CITY - In his return to campus Thursday night, former University of Iowa President David Skorton, now secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, made his best case for the value of a blended and broad education merging the sciences with the arts and humanities.

The arts are too often undervalued, said Skorton, who spent 26 years on the UI campus, including serving as president from 2003 to 2006.

'In the classrooms labs and halls of the University of Iowa and the galleries and research areas of the Smithsonian, science, technology, the arts and humanities coexist,” he said. 'But for others, there is skepticism. Particularly with regard to the value of an education broadened with the liberal arts subjects. Too often, the humanities and the arts are relegated to a secondary role - especially when public money is at stake, in local, state and federal budgets.”

Politicians and educational administrations nationally have in recent years urged a focus on STEM skills - those in science, technology, engineering and math, Skorton said.

'But I have seen the benefits of an integrated education,” he said. 'And we are at risk as a people if we don't acknowledge and advocate and work hard to ensure that STEM studies and liberal arts continue to be emphasized as enhancing and nourishing one another.”

Even then, Skorton said, our world is facing daunting challenges. He talked about the need for innovation.

'The sharing of the fruits of research, and perhaps more importantly the process of research, is sorely needed today when the enormous lack of trust of the public in so many types of institutions extends unfortunately to the sciences,” he said. 'In fields from vaccinations to climate change, carefully wrought scientific consensus is rejected in some quarters.”

Skorton, a physician, argued institutions like the UI and the Smithsonian can combat that by merging science and the arts to communicate the value for medical advancement, personal enrichment, economic strength, and international relations.

'A life in science has taught me that science will not be enough to solve the world's thorniest challenges,” he said. 'For that, we need the broad and deep value of the liberal arts.”

Serving as a backdrop to Skorton's remarks Thursday are threats facing Iowa's public universities. In 1981, 77.4 percent of Iowa's regent university general education funding came through state appropriations. Nearly 21 percent came from tuition. In the current budget year, state appropriations accounted for 33 percent of the universities' general education funds, while tuition provided nearly 63 percent.

And those percentages were reported before lawmakers in January approved $117.8 million in statewide deappropriations - the largest chunk, $20.8 million, coming from the Board of Regents. Those midyear cuts left UI, for example, scrambling to find ways to reduce its budget by $9.2 million.

But regents and university heads voiced hope lawmakers would grant their request for 2 percent funding increases in the 2018 and 2019 budget years. Then Gov. Terry Branstad earlier this week announced revisions to his two-year spending plan that further slashes regent university support in 2018 and keeps base funding levels below the 2016 mark in 2019.

Skorton on Thursday, without offering solutions, said he would continue advocating for the paramount importance of continuing education.

'Look to science and to poetry, combine innovation and interpretation,” he said. 'We need the best of both, and it is universities that best provide them.”

On an individual level, Skorton left the audience with four actionable pieces of advice to enrich their personal lives: read, listen, reflect and seek out an array of cultural experiences.

Specifically, he said, 'read anything written at the University of Iowa.”

'See any performance at Hancher Auditorium,” he said. 'You will be better than the day before.”

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