Five days before the start of the 2009-2010 academic year, the Beloit College faculty gathered to discuss the true value of a liberal arts education and the distinctive elements of the Beloit experience. The day marked the beginning of a concentrated, year-and-a-half curricular review that resulted in the finalization, on Dec. 8, 2010, of a new set of graduation requirements that retain the flexibility and rigor that has made a Beloit education so distinctive, while also stating a preference for action—for internships, capstone experiences, and intensive research. This focus on putting the lessons of the classroom into practice has always been a hallmark of a Beloit education, though it’s occasionally been an unstated one. The focus is now writ large—on everything from the college catalog to the center through which many internship, entrepreneurial, and career learning opportunities will run: the newly christened “Liberal Arts in Practice Center.”

Beginning in fall of 2011, more than 300 students enrolled in the college with the understanding that they must test their knowledge regularly and repeatedly. Whether abroad or on campus, in their major or outside it, they will intern, author, design, and do the sort of projects and work that will force them to apply their knowledge within their lives, in their communities, and in tangible ways that will energize their studies and illuminate their true potential post-graduation.

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