This article explores the case for integrating intellectual virtues into the curriculum and pedagogical practice of preparing future school leaders. Professional accreditation standards provided a foundation for demonstrating the role of intellectual virtue in the practice of effectively running schools. The Virtuous Scientist project served as…

Surveys of employers continually highlight the need for better communication skills among recent college graduates. Yet, writing instruction in higher education serves far more than a transactional purpose. Writing facilitates learning, helps students gain skills in analysis and synthesis, and supports a range of other personal and intellectual…

At North Carolina State University, inquiry-guided learning offered a compelling framework for integrating the undergraduate curriculum across general education and the major. Rather than adopting a definition of inquiry-guided learning as a prescribed set of approaches, participating faculty and staff members agreed on four overarching intended…

This paper describes classroom activities to help students understand the publication cycle and the characteristics of major publication channels (textbooks, books, encyclopedias, and periodicals) for first-year physics students. When designing these activities, the author considered the intellectual development characteristics and the…

Are the humanities relevant enough to the average undergraduate to be included as a required part of a general education program? The University of Idaho (UI) is currently ten years into the challenge of implementing a cross-disciplinary, university-wide general education program--the UI Core--that has the attention, if not always the support, of…

Scholars contend that the college curriculum is increasingly politicized and trivialized in the name of diversity. Students are taught that Western culture is tainted by racism, sexism, and oppression, and the belief that liberal education can transcend differences and provide help in leading a moral life is being lost. (MSE)

Throughout its history, American education has focused narrowly on practical and vocational issues and has ignored the need for intellectual development. The lesson is not yet fully learned, and an emphasis on critical thinking as a goal of education is only beginning to gather strength. (MSE)

"Music Video 454," a course surveying the history, business, and aesthetics of the most important force in both music and television, is described. The instructors teach students to analyze videos--aesthetically and sociologically, and hope to enhance their career prospects. (MLW)

In response to an emerging anti-intellectualism on campus, Saint Lawrence University (New York) instituted an interdisciplinary first-year course built around themes of community and identity. The effort is designed to stimulate intellectual development, bring faculty and students into closer contact, and blend academics and student life. (MSE)

A study analyzed faculty goals for intellectual development in introductory college courses, to examine disciplinary differences and similarities. Faculty usually assumed intellectual development would occur in conjunction with knowledge acquisition. Differences were found between disciplines, but not along conventional hard/soft discipline lines.…

The ways in which Miami University (Ohio) has addressed some issues of interdisciplinary study are reported. Issues include disciplinary background needed by students before interdisciplinary study and by teachers before interdisciplinary teaching; the roles of the individual disciplines; intellectual skill development; and interdisciplinary study…

The debate over teaching the "canon," a collection of great books authored by Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Kant, Darwin, and others that has traditionally represented the Western intellectual tradition, as a core of the college curriculum, is examined. Discussion begins with a description of how the canon has been taught from ancient…

Six undergraduate humanities courses and programs with a variety of structures and focuses are described, and sources of further information are given. (MSE)

Four articles on higher education curriculum are presented. In "The Articulate Curriculum" an approach to curriculum description is presented that is designed to have minimal ambiguity concerning the intention, content, and processes of the curriculum and that will lead to questioning several discrete factors in the curriculum planning…