College Hosts Liberal Arts Conversation

Faculty and administrators from around the country join the Gaede Institute’s 10th annual Conversation on the Liberal Arts at Westmont Feb. 25-26. “The Fine Art of the Liberal Arts” includes speakers Lewis Hyde, Janet Echelman and Harold Best. Plenary sessions with the speakers are free and open to the public.

Hyde, Richard L. Thomas professor of creative writing at Kenyon College, speaks Friday, Feb. 25, at 4 p.m. in Hieronymus Lounge at Kerrwood Hall. He also taught writing for six years at Harvard University and has published many books, including “Common as Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership.”

Harold M. Best, emeritus dean and professor of music of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music, speaks Saturday, Feb. 26, at 10 a.m. in Hieronymus Lounge at Kerrwood Hall. Best, a graduate of Nyack College, earned a master’s degree from Claremont Graduate School and a doctor of sacred music from Union Theological Seminary. He served as dean of the Wheaton College Conservatory of Music from 1970 until his retirement in 1997.

Echelman, an American artist well-known for reshaping urban airspace with monumental, fluidly moving sculpture, speaks Saturday, Feb. 26, at 3:30 p.m. at the Darling Foundation Lecture Hall in Westmont’s Winter Hall (Room 210). She premiered Water Sky Garden at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games and in 2009 completed the largest U.S. public art commission of that year, “Her Secret is Patience,” a civic icon for Phoenix that’s been hailed for revitalizing its downtown. She graduated from Harvard College and completed graduate degrees in psychology and painting.

“Given the frequency with which the liberal arts are identified with the fine arts, the two can have an uneasy relationship,” says Chris Hoeckley, director of the Gaede Institute. “We hope to better understand the challenges to integrating the fine arts into a wider liberal arts context.”