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A few years ago, when Stephen H. Bowen was provost of Bucknell University, he gave a convocation speech on the theme " the ironic utility of a liberal arts education. " He recounted a short story by Isaac Asimov, " Profession, " which is an allegory about the modern trend toward a special-ized—and away from a general—education. The tale is set in the year 6510 when, at age eighteen, all students' brains are analyzed to determine the profession for which they are best suited. In a matter of minutes, all information necessary for that, and only that, profession is transferred to them through a set of cranial electrodes. At the story's conclusion, the hero finds that he " is one of the few individuals in the galaxy that each year is spared 'Education Day,' so that they may learn in an individual way, with the possibility that through their original thinking and their cultured imagina-tions, they may just possibly add to human knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to the benefit of all humanity. " In other words, concluded Bowen, the hero would be the recipient of a liberal arts education. A year later, when Bowen took leave from Bucknell to spend a year as a senior fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C., he wrote a article for the organization's journal Peer Review titled " Engaged Learning: Are We All on the Same Page? " In it, he makes a case for student engagement and transformative learning. Bowen, who spent August settling in to the dean's office, chose to come to Oxford College partly because he sees the position as full-scale immersion into these educational passions. " Oxford focuses intently on liberal arts ideals, " he says. " And the ideal to which many liberal arts colleges aspire is realized at Oxford. There is also a real commitment to teaching on the part of the faculty, who are predisposed to make teaching the subject of their scholarship. They are self-critical and self-examining as teachers, and some have taken on broad questions of pedagogy. " For its part, Oxford has acquired a leader thoroughly versed in its strengths and challenges , with expertise and connections that will serve the college well. Bowen has bachelor's degrees in philosophy and zoology from DePauw University, a master's degree in zoology from Indiana University, and a doctorate in zoology from Rhodes …