InnovEd4TS Field mission #6 - General Studies: A Unique Liberal Arts Education in Portugal

Invited experts from five Circle U. universities had the opportunity to learn about the undergraduate programme "General Studies" (Estudos Gerais in Portuguese) offered since 2011 to students from three different faculties and from 2016 to students from eight different faculties.

The General Studies bachelor's degree is deeply rooted in the spirit of the liberal arts and liberal education. The main objective of the programme is to allow bachelor students to develop a comprehensive knowledge in various disciplines. Bridging the gap between social and exact sciences, it promotes interdisciplinary mobility as well as international mobility through the studies of global concepts, texts and authors. Students are able to design their own modules based on their preferences. They choose a major and a minor (or several of them) among diverse subjects in arts, sciences and humanities. One common course around the study of Core Texts is followed by all students so that they acquire knowledge on important authors while developing critical thinking skills. A tutoring system has been developed to assist students in designing their programme. Throughout the years, the programme has gained a high popularity among students. This year, more than 300 students applied, while only 68 were accepted.

Transferable Skills developed in the programme "General Studies"

"General Studies" at the University of Lisbon focused on three transferable skills.

	Interdisciplinarity is the key focus of the programme as the concept has spread across the university. Students combine disciplines in their curriculum through the Major / Minor approach in an innovative way.
	Students develop intercultural understanding by building robust general knowledge based on texts and concepts from international authors, thus they open up to global perspectives.
	Critical thinking skills emerge through the confrontation of ideas. Students participate in entire sessions dedicated to discussion and self-reflection.

A good balance between autonomy and teamwork

Despite the support of tutors and an easy dialogue with the administrative staff and professors, students need to tailor their own schedule and be proactive to give coherence to their choices. Furthermore, students are able to develop teamwork skills. The course Core Texts enables students to engage in collective reflection.

Overall, the students develop a wide range of skills, from analysis to organising and planning. Oral and written communication competencies in two languages are acquired as the environment encourages interdisciplinary interactions and communication among students and with the professors.

An in-depth interdisciplinary approach

"Core Texts" is the only required course. The course is divided into three semesters during which the students read, learn and discuss major texts from various disciplines. These texts are from Antiquity and the Middle Ages; Renaissance and Enlightenment; Romanticism to the Present Day.

The pattern is to invite a specialist to give two lectures each semester on a specific text. After the presentation and in-depth analysis of the text by the expert, the class is divided into smaller discussion groups of 15 or 20 students that, together, critically discuss and confront their ideas on the text. The goal for the students is to converse with fundamental texts. Main fields of knowledge tend to be covered, from physics to poetry, theatre or philosophy.

The students have the opportunity to meet with the same group during three semesters. This is unique as students are able to discuss, analyse, have an opinion, produce ideas, listen to each other and engage in fruitful discussions. Professor Henrique Leitão described the course as "an intellectual experience, in which students see these texts as a second skin because they have studied them so much."

A collective journey: the support of monitors and tutors 

The degree is based on students' motivation and their desire to learn from a diversity of academic fields. Tutors help students to design their own curricula according to their wishes and make sure that the choice of courses, majors or minors is more consistent. Tutors themselves may come from many different faculties. 

In addition, in the course "Core Texts," discussion sessions are led by facilitators (they are called monitors). They usually are former students from the course. In this respect, the experts noted that the classes do a great job at mobilising experts and monitors in order to spark student learning. Similarly, the monitors supervise student discussion sessions and facilitate the circulation of information between students, monitors and experts on the texts. One of the monitors, João Maria Carvalho, refers to the students as a "community."

On a logistical level, experts were impressed by how the programme is managed. The general architecture of the programme is based primarily on the motivation of students to choose the disciplines they wish to study.

Looking ahead: the challenge of multilingualism

Experts recognised how difficult it must have been to set up this degree. The initiators of the degree exposed the challenges encountered in getting the idea of a liberal arts programme accepted by the administration and the presidency of the university. 

Ten years later, its success among students and its expansion to other academic fields are remarkable.  When it started, three faculties took part in the programme, then it went up to eight, and negotiations are currently running to expand it further. In the coming months, eleven or twelve faculties out of 18 shall be part of the programme. 

The experts acknowledged that this kind of degree does not exist in their respective universities. A great way forward would be to start a European rollout of the project. For this, the challenges regarding multilingualism need to be presented. In Lisbon, the designers of the degree include this aspect by requiring a good level in two languages. For example, the course "Core texts" offers to study texts in English, Spanish or Portuguese. The combination of the multilingual identity along with its interdisciplinary perspective makes the initiative "General Studies" inspiring in the European higher education landscape. 

Professors who participated in the field mission:

• João Figueiredo is the coordinator of the course "Core Texts". He holds degrees from the University of Lisbon, where he also teaches in the Romance Literatures Department. His interests include aesthetics, art history, Italian Studies, and Renaissance literature.
• Henrique Leitão is an historian of science. He has taken part in the course "Core Texts" for several years. His lectures focus on texts of Aristotle, Copernicus and Galileo. He is currently a researcher at the Interuniversity Centre for the History of Science and Technology (CIUHCT) and Chair of the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (DHFC) at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon (FCUL).
• Rui Agostinho is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Lisbon. He teaches a class to students of the program "General Studies".

Former Students, now monitors, who participated in the field mission:

• José Maria Carvalho Dos Reis is a law student 
• Maria da Paz Carvalho 
• João Maria Carvalho graduated in Languages, Literature and Culture

Fact Box and Definitions

The InnovEd4TS Project (Innovative Education for Transferable Skills) focuses on the analysis and development of initiatives that promote the acquisition of transferable skills among students.

The Booklet

The booklet is a tool which serves as the basis for group discussion on the transferable skills developed by flagship initiatives.

Booklet (pdf)