At the beginning of the second decade of the twenty-first century, a new vision for college learning is clearly in view. Through its Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) has outlined what contemporary college students need to know and be able to do--in…

Describes a new approach to undergraduate study of the humanities at the University of Denver, how it was developed, how it is working, and what strategies it suggests for curricular change. (Editor/PG)

Describes the challenges involved in creating digitally rich courses in the humanities, courses that can include opportunities for learning that are more effective than traditional approaches. Considers course development and the new skills required by faculty and students. (SLD)

Undergraduate education has not kept pace with knowledge about the role of culture in shaping human and social behavior. The deficiencies can and should be repaired, but some real innovations are essential to the process. Despite the challenge, there is a real opportunity to parlay research advances emerging out of the recent "cultural turn" in a…

Interprets the humanities as a rich and essential resource for understanding and making human choices in the real late twentieth century world. (MSE)

While most administrators and faculty would support the idea of developing aesthetic education in the college curriculum, few feel any urgency about it. Each institution should examine its mission statement and develop a comprehensive philosophy about the place of the arts in its curriculum. (MSE)

Pacific Lutheran's integrated studies program includes eight courses and one seminar, all with "dynamics of change" as the theme. Courses are related to each other in pairs or sequences, each sequence having its own unifying and controlling topic expressed in the particular subjects of each course component. (Author/LBH)

Rather than return to a core curriculum that reflects the structures of knowledge and education developed for other contexts and needs, the humanities should create new structures appropriate to the students', culture's, and faculty's needs today, particularly through interdisciplinary collaboration. (MSE)

Lack of support for language and literature study in higher education reflects the larger attitudes of American culture: that learning for its own sake has little value. This provincialism is outmoded, dangerous, and intellectually indefensible, and must be eliminated in order to redefine language and literature studies. (MSE)

The individual element of multicultural education needs to be recognized. The Association of American Colleges' national project, "Engaging Cultural Legacies: Shaping Core Curricula in the Humanities," helps colleges develop curriculum that challenge students to explore the humanities as reflected in their own social values, ideas, and…

A recommended approach to college teaching and its improvement involves (1) collaboration with a faculty colleague who observes the teaching and (2) finding and using new ways of getting to know the students and how they learn. (MSE)

Despite perceived threats to the humanities, the academic profession can reassert its integrity and shape the futures of institutions by using existing networks and organizations to change the formal structure of education to improve its product. (MSE)

NEXA is a team-taught interdisciplinary, inter-school curriculum devoted to reuniting the sciences and the humanities. The development of the program and the curriculum itself are discussed, including the findings of a formal site-team evaluation. (Author/MLW)

The American Humanities Program grew out of a retired American culture course and was revived as a part of an interdisciplinary, multi-media experience in American culture. Some of the politics of establishing the program are described: funding, teaching teams, and having an interdisciplinary course taught by one person. (Author/MLW)

The development of a new humanities program is described. This includes a freshman seminar as an introduction to humanistic study, the modification of traditional language requirements, and the establishment of a writing and reading lab, an issues and values interdisciplinary seminar, and humanities and intercultural majors. (Author/MLW)