Here’s a guy who has spent most of his career as a film and theatre critic.  A guy who studied American history and literature on his way to his bachelor’s degree.

Not a lawyer, scientist, engineer or big-thinking PhD.  Or any other vaunted professional with *hard* credentials.

Yet, I invite you to read his column in this morning’s New York Times.  Regardless of what you might think about his bias, I bet you’ll finish feeling more respect for Rich’s facility with hard issues.

Rich can navigate the vagaries of Gen. Stanley McChrystal and our war in Afghanistan as easily as the plays of Moss Hart and life in post-WWII New York City.  Rich is an embodiment of what we used to regard as a well-educated person.

Is that because he pursued a liberal arts education?  Probably not…or probably not just because he pursued a liberal arts education.

But it didn’t hurt.

“Hi, Doug.”

You may be wondering what makes me qualified to suggest in this blog or elsewhere how you might write better.  Much less to suggest how to run your business.

My defense is simple.  While I’ve never had a business course or any academic training in PR or communication, I have had plenty of exposure to the liberal arts.  First as a undergrad with a Liberal Studies major and then as a master’s grad focused on 19th-century American architecture.

So what?

Donald Swain gave the best response I’ve ever heard to that question.  He was the president of the University of Louisville from 1981 to 1995.

Swain was also trained as an historian.  With a PhD in the history of the environmental movement.

Once upon a time, he was interviewed, and the reporter asked him, “What makes you — an historian — qualified to run a major corporation?”

Swain replied that there were three things that prepared him.

• The first was that history is a literary discipline.  To get any good at it takes a lot of reading and writing proficiency.
• Second, historians tend to develop a sense of detachment.  At least the good ones.  They condition themselves to take an arm’s-length view of their subject…and don’t get too triggered.
• And, third, historians understand that there’s nothing new under the sun.  So, when — not  if — such-and-such crisis occurs, the historian is trained to ask, “What did we do the last time this happened?  Did it work?”

As an art historian, I can add something that serves me in addition to what’s on Dr. Swain’s list.  Thanks to the training I got in my sub-discipline, I’ve become more whole-brained.  After years of matching visual and verbal content, I believe I’m better able to create materials that better engage my reader-viewer-visitor and convey my message.

And, I can tell you everything you’d ever care to know about American federal architecture in the Gilded Age.