After describing our interdisciplinary humanities course and its history, we identify challenges these courses face and strategies for keeping them vigorous. We argue that course longevity depends on effective translation of vision and content into explicit goals bridging the gaps between faculty members and between faculty and students. (Contains…

Examines what types of liberating understandings or competencies that political science, particularly the introductory courses, can give the general education student who will not major in the discipline. (Author/RK)

Describes efforts to utilize a biocultural framework in introductory anthropology courses. Explains the biocultural theory of human evolution, describes experimental courses at Cornell University and Colorado College, looks at the problems encountered and lessons learned during these experimental efforts, and considers prospects for future…

Argues that film and literature courses must get beyond discussions of plot to explorations of narrative perspective and structure, communication techniques, and critical methodologies in order to give students an awareness of the inherent natures, limitations, and possibilities of film and literature. (DMM)

Provides a rationale for teaching courses on the Holocaust. Discusses the subject as a historical imperative to preserve the memory of a major historical event; as an ethical imperative to reinforce human values; and as a personal imperative to promote self-assessment and understanding of human nature. (DMM)

Criticizes traditional team teaching, describes how the teaching method at the New School of Liberal Arts at Brooklyn College is more valid by discussing two of the courses concerned with the Age of Revolutions, that in Science and in Literature, and explains how they interrelate. (Author/RK)

Discusses the following principles for developing literature and film courses: (1) instructors should have goals for the course and understand and know how to achieve them; (2) works should be chosen for their quality, not popularity; and (3) instructors should be expert in film, literature, or both. (AYC)

Describes efforts to overcome fear and disinterest among science students in the College of General Studies, a two-year interdisciplinary core program at Boston University. Indicates that the textbook is used to support course lectures, rather than as a primary source; study habits are taught along with the subject material; and teamwork is…

Provides a rationale for literature study as part of the general education curriculum, considering its primary benefits to be the development of a fundamental understanding of metaphoric thinking, abstraction, conceptualization, and of students' ability to read and appreciate literature independently. Addresses issues of appropriate content and…

Extensive assessment of innovative core courses pointed to five features of the courses that led to students being actively engaged in learning. Faculty teaching the courses created an environment to foster collaborative learning, facilitated student ownership of learning, structured their courses to connect academic ideas with other disciplines…