{"id":387,"date":"2006-10-26T10:52:30","date_gmt":"2006-10-26T15:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/?p=387"},"modified":"2006-10-26T10:53:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-26T15:53:00","slug":"on-the-mighty-value-of-the-liberal-arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/10\/26\/on-the-mighty-value-of-the-liberal-arts\/","title":{"rendered":"On the mighty value of the liberal arts"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"Monkey<\/a>
\nWe always argue (hope?) that all this wonderful stuff we’re passing along at a liberal arts college<\/a> will have some value down the road, often in strange and unexpected ways, but it’s awfully nice when concrete examples come our way, as two have done this week.<\/p>\n

First, Kirsten Jaglo (UMM ’94) was back on campus<\/a> earlier in the week as the Latterell Visiting Alumna. She’s gone through a PhD in biology and a post doc at the University of California at San Franciso to her current position in the U.S. Department of State\u2019s Office of Global Change as a American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow.<\/p>\n

Her responsibilities include developing, negotiating and implementing U.S. international climate change policy and providing scientific expertise for the United States Agency for International Development.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She became fluent in Danish through multiple study abroad experiences in high school and while at UMM, and apparently found this quite useful in helping get a belligerent Dane to sit down and play nice during a negotation. I can just imagine the look of surprise on his (and everyone else’s) face when she shifted into Danish…<\/p>\n

\"Monkey<\/a>
\nAnd just yesterday Cory, one of the fine folks at Monkey River Town<\/a>, pointed out that some of the computing esoterica he learned from me back in the day has proved useful in the careful crafting of their mighty Philos-O-tron. In a recent response to the truly deep question “r u real?” the Philos-O-tron incorporated ideas from the classic Turing Test<\/a>, unequivocally demonstrating the value of this sort of broad based education in the creation of on-line oracles.<\/p>\n

See, you never know when this stuff might prove useful – Liberal arts rules!<\/p>\nNo tag for this post.\n\t

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