The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga recently updated their general education curriculum with an eye toward the essential learning outcomes identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities through its Liberal Education and America's Promise (LEAP) initiative. Like many other campuses across the country, money is tight,…

At a time when language programs around the United States are in crisis--the University of Rhode Island's Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures is realigning its curriculum to emphasize proficiency and intercultural competence within a strong liberal arts context. The result of the department's recent initiatives? More than…

In November 2011, the author--Ivan Fuller, a professor of theatre and associate dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Rider University--attended a joint symposium of the American Conference of Academic Deans and Phi Beta Kappa that was designed to wrestle with the question of why the humanities matter. At one session, participants…

Despite research showing the broad impact that the study of foreign languages has on the cognitive development of young people, and despite the importance of language expertise for America's economic and geopolitical interests in the twenty-first century, the teaching of world languages has been marginalized within the American educational system…

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)

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…

Problems and considerations in developing interdisciplinary programs in higher education are examined, and the evolution of several new programs linking humanities and teacher education is discussed. Programs at Georgia Southern University, Salem College (North Carolina), and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee are highlighted. (MSE)

Future Directions for a Learning Society is a program being conducted by the College Board with funds from the Exxon Corporation to study, plan, demonstrate, and develop new services in the area of adult, lifelong, recurrent, and continuing education. The initiatives and strategic actions of the program are outlined. (JMF)

Describes the Association of American Colleges and Universities' Faculty and Curriculum Development Seminar, held in Japan and designed to open faculty minds to global issues. The year-long seminar involves three-person teams from eight institutions, competitively selected through proposals. Its three phases include preparatory reading and…

A cooperative venture by the California State University and Colleges System (CSUCS) Consortium and the College of the Sequoias, a community college, is described in which students can pursue a liberal arts degree program with expanded community service. (LBH)

Fairleigh Dickinson University (New Jersey) students take four core general education courses from the second half of the freshman year through the first half of the junior year. All sections have the same syllabus, and faculty teaching them on separate campuses review and refine the courses together. Core course faculty participated actively in a…

Lessons learned while reforming the core curriculum at the College of Saint Catherine (Minnesota) are outlined, including: broad ownership of the curriculum by faculty is essential; sometimes curriculum issues are more about faculty than students; a means for arriving at consensus must be devised; planning should take the curriculum through its…