Libera is the Latin word for free. Socrates claimed that education would liberate while instilling both intellectual rigor and moral structure. As defined by the Greeks, the arts aimed to cultivate a broad perspective toward knowledge. Thus a liberal arts education at Binghamton is designed to strengthen intellectual skills and general knowledge.  While a professional curriculum may be designed to provide specific skills tailored to a particular vocation, a liberal arts education is designed to provide a general base of knowledge while developing skills of writing, rhetoric, and analysis. A liberal arts education should feature a learning environment that emphasizes student-teacher interaction. Though a liberal arts education imparts broad intellectual training rather than skills suited to a particular profession, this training is valued in professional contexts of all sorts. In a world where what one needs to know is constantly changing, a liberal arts education teaches a student how to ask the right questions, and then find the right answers.

Why Harpur?
In 1950, at Harpur College’s inception, the university immortalized its guiding philosophy on a bronze tablet.  Still prominently displayed on a granite boulder in the center of campus, the tablet reads, "From Breadth through Depth to Perspective."  Harpur remains committed to such a curriculum.  While each Harpur student’s program is unique, students build upon a required General Education curriculum, which stresses a broad base of knowledge.  At the same time, students begin the process of selecting a major, an area of specialization providing an in-depth understanding of content and problem-solving skills.  Writing-based courses offered by a wide range of departments are a significant part of a Harpur curriculum.  In this way, students gain an understanding of themselves in relation to society, to civilization, and to the natural and physical world.  They are challenged to exercise the essential techniques of thinking logically, communicating efficiently, understanding scientific reasoning and analysis, appreciating different cultures and viewpoints, and decision making.  In the short term, these insights and skills stand the Harpur graduate in good stead by providing the skills necessary for success in graduate and professional school or a first job and, in the long term, by shaping a fuller, more satisfying life.