Making the Case for Arts and Sciences 97 which all fields of human knowledge contained within the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, is the product of a liberal arts education. This point becomes even more important in today’s higher education climate in which the vocational emphasis of getting a degree unfortu- nately is trumping the greater purpose of pursuing an education for its own sake—a change that many Arts and Sciences alums and donors lament. As a result, many proponents of the liberal arts are finding that the liberal arts has become a hard sell today because the traditional liberal arts education is not seen by students and/or their parents as preparing students for a specific vocation. To counter this concern, proponents of the liberal arts can no longer isolate themselves from these vocational concerns. As he writes in Why Choose the Liberal Arts, Mark William Roche finds it “not only ironic but also appealing that the very education we elevate for its intrinsic value cultivates virtues that serve meaningful external ends and prepares students for the needs and challenges of prac- tical life” (University of Notre Dean Press, 2010, p 51). While the history of the role and scope of the liberal arts falls outside the primary purpose of this essay, as deans of Arts and Sciences we have to remain constantly vigilant that our colleges have strong messages promoting the values of the liberal arts. Nor is the need for a defense about the role and values of the liberal arts a new problem. In 1964, The Association of American Colleges published Reflections on the Role of Liberal Education (a reprint of Volume L, Number 2 of Liberal Educa- tion), a collection designed “to initiate debate on the role of liberal educa- tion in a democratic society in the latter part of the twentieth century, and more particularly, the place of the liberal arts college in American education.” Most interesting in this description is the focus on the liberal arts college. In 2014, only a quarter of CCAS member institutions are traditional liberal arts colleges, and for this reason, making the case for Arts and Sciences and the liberal arts becomes even more critical for those of us who work in institutions where Arts and Sciences programs are perceived by some students as failing to address the immediacy of occupational goals. Thereisanabundanceofliteraturewrittenindefenseoftheliberalarts promoting the idea that strengthening a university’s liberal education