Legacy Symposium

Monsignor Barta is known for his many roles at Loras College—priest, counselor, psychology professor, department chair, academic dean, president, and regent. But his passion is teaching.

In Msgr. Barta’s presidential inaugural address, he talked specifically about the liberal arts in ways that resonate with the purpose of the Legacy Symposium. His words continue to inspire as we celebrate the accomplishments of scholarship and creativity exhibited today by the Loras College community.

“The liberal arts college looks for the enquiring mind to do away with ignorance. It builds libraries, it brings together an informed faculty, it provides experiences in the hope of stimulating the mind.

It insists upon logic in formal classes and in the writing and the discussion of students. It alerts the student to the psychodynamics that influence their thinking. It gives them the rules of debate and other verbal exchange. It teaches them the scientific method to help separate conjecture from reality—all in the effort to reduce error.

The liberal arts college required a breadth as well as a depth of experience, insisting that its people taste of various cultures, learn of various opinions, learn to relate to people with a wide variety of ideas to everyone’s enrichment and advantage—all in the effort to avoid narrowness.

A liberal education is something much more than the cultivation of technological expertise. It is also the cultivation of that social sensitivity which brings the warmth and color to life. It is the explicit profession that we are social by nature, and incomplete without others. It is the expression of respect for others, manifesting itself in generosity, not the selfishness which enslaves us.”

Msgr. James Barta (’52)
Liberal Arts, Faith Values: Leaven for Society
Friday, October 28, 1988