William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life, leads a public talk on April 1 in which he will examine the value of a liberal arts education.
Deresiewicz, who visits Scripps College this spring as the Mary Routt Chair of Writing, will offer his personal observations of education at The Claremont Colleges in his public lecture. He will also question the meaning of such words as “leadership” and “service” and examine how education has been sieged and reshaped by neoliberal ideas.
His public talk will also challenge audience members to consider the way in which we esteem independent thinking and whether we expect students to think a certain way about academic subjects. 
His talk, which begins at 4:15 p.m., will be free and open to the public. This event will be in the Humanities Auditorium.
Through the Mary Routt Chair of Writing, Scripps invites nationally recognized professional writers to campus each spring to teach a semester-long course, as well as deliver public presentations and arrange for other acclaimed writers to visit Scripps for readings.
This event is co-sponsored by the Scripps College Core Curriculum in Interdisciplinary Humanities and the Mary Routt Chair of Writing.