Structured Liberal Education

Structured Liberal Education (SLE) (pronounced "slee") is an academically demanding program at Stanford University that offers an alternative three-course sequence for freshmen to fulfill their Introduction to the Humanities (IHUM) and Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) requirements. With a year-long schedule of nine units in the fall and winter quarters and ten in the spring quarter, SLE is unique in its intellectual rigor, multi-disciplinary approach, and residence-based structure.

All SLE participants live, dine, and attend class in the same residence hall, Florence Moore. They live in either the all-freshman dorm, Alondra, which is made up of half SLE students and half IHUM students, or in one of the two four-class dorms, Cardenal and Faisan. Many of the upperclassmen in Cardenal and Faisan are former SLE students, which helps maintain an SLE community spanning the different years. In the main lounge of Florence Moore, known as the SLE lounge, students attend lectures given by professors within many departments at Stanford and by visiting guest lecturers. In addition, students participate in small-group sections, in which they discuss the lectures and assigned literature from SLE's extensive, diverse, and ever-evolving reading list. Films, often relating to the material of study, are screened weekly, and student-produced plays are regularly part of the syllabus. Aristophanes' "Lysistrata" is traditionally performed in the fall. SLE also provides freshman with intensive individual writing tutorials.

Structured Liberal Education was the brainchild of Stanford history professor Mark Mancall. Internationally-renowned political theorist Hannah Arendt also played an instrumental role in SLE's creation, having been one of the original proponents of the program's enactment. In some respects, Stanford's SLE is comparable to other notable "Great Books" programs, such as Directed Studies at Yale University, the Liberal Arts Seminar at Georgetown University, the Core Curriculum at Columbia University, the Core Curriculum at the University of Chicago, and the curriculum at St. John's College, but owing to Mancall's scholarly interests in East Asia, SLE's reading list is more culturally diverse.

Recently, Roland Greene, a faculty member of the English and Comparative Literature departments, was named the new program director ¹.

SLE is now under the auspices of the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, which provides intellectual and academic support and is the base of many of the faculty who participate in the program. The administrative home of SLE is the IHUM Program.

Citations

¹ http://ual.stanford.edu/AP/univ_req/IHUM_SLE/SLE.html

External links

* [http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/areaone/14des.shtml Official SLE Website]
* [http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/2001/janfeb/departments/studentvoice.html Article on SLE culture in Stanford Magazine]
* [http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2006/5/18/sleRagesAgainstTheDyingOfTheLight Article in The Stanford Daily touching on the implications of the SLE "nerd" stereotype]
* [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=502709 Editorial in The Harvard Crimson imploring Harvard to create a "Great Books" program similar to Stanford's SLE and Yale's Directed Studies programs]
* [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:drnPjCl6zjUJ:cve.ntnu.edu.tw/store/publish/62.doc+%22structured+liberal+education%22+stanford&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=101&client=firefox-a Taiwanese academic journal article describing SLE and citing it as an exemplary American model of how to promote residence-based academic learning]
* [http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=48681 Berlin's European College of Liberal Arts announcement of Structured Liberal Education, an international summer university emulating Stanford's program]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Y63Jg0p-0 YouTube video of student relieving exam stress by singing "Cabaret"]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2uPhWIau2w YouTube video of another student relieving exam stress in another way]