A course's reading list is the skeleton of a semester's body of thought, the inventory that a professor writes up for the departmental Web site and the schedule of courses that lists the goods. Despite the obvious utility of fixed reading lists, one should jettison them when possible. The author has been conducting an informal experiment using a…

This article profiles A.C. Grayling, a British intellectual who pioneers a new model for college. In his role as founder of the New College of the Humanities, Britain's newest and most controversial institution of higher education, A.C. Grayling could have chosen among several titles. The senior academic officer at most English higher-education…

In China the global challenges of fast-evolving technology and multidisciplinary studies are complicated by the newness of the market. Only 40 years ago, professors were condemned to manual labor if suspected of capitalist sympathies, and most universities were shut down during the decade-long Cultural Revolution. The government is preoccupied…

Sun Yat-sen University's East-meets-West curriculum is distinctive, but its embrace of liberal education--education across disciplines, meant to provoke broad thinking--is far from unusual. At a time when China and its East Asian neighbors are trouncing U.S. students on international exams, educators in these countries are nonetheless adopting,…

In the past year, public colleges and universities across the country have been shrinking degree programs and terminating personnel--including tenured professors--in an effort to cope with budget cuts in higher education. The situation is not confined to a handful of mismanaged public institutions, as in the past. It is a national phenomenon and…

The author reports that tough economic times are leading administrators to propose changes that short-circuit faculty governance, long a prized principle that gives professors wide-ranging authority over educational matters. The results, faculty members say, are hastily conceived plans that reorganize academic programs, decrease professors' roles…

In response to the threat of global climate change, more than 550 campus leaders have signed the Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging their colleges to become carbon-neutral. But some educators worry that colleges are fulfilling only half of their environmental duties. The other half, of course, should take place in the classroom, where…

In a survey last year, four-fifths of Americans surveyed could not correctly define "molecule." This is not good news for educators who worry that Americans are ill prepared to compete with other nations and understand political choices involving science. Behind those disturbing numbers lie another, more encouraging, set of poll results intimately…

The neuroscience revolution has brought a set of difficult, at times uncomfortable, changes in university-based research psychology. The technologies that allow scholars to probe the structures and functions of the human brain are also causing profound alterations in the structures and functions of psychology departments: curricula, hiring…

In this article, the author contends that the vast majority of American historians no longer regard American culture--whether high culture or mainstream popular culture--as an essential area of study. The much-vaunted culture turn in the humanities has run its course in one of the first disciplines it influenced. Indeed, most of the books today…

The dramatic increase in college course offerings about the decade of the 1960s is a result of both to student curiosity with its protest movements and of faculty composition. Some feel the courses are essential to student understanding of modern life, whereas others feel more research is needed. (MSE)

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)

While the study of minority literatures has gained acceptance in college classrooms, graduate programs, and scholarly journals, its place in the discipline of literary studies is far from assured, and its success raises questions about definition and direction. (MSE)

About 700 college programs, ranging from short workshops to degree programs, now specialize in leadership development, twice as many as four years ago. Critics wonder whether the subject has enough substance to warrant an academic minor or major. Others doubt whether the skills of leadership can be acquired through classroom instruction. (MSE)

This article outlines the evolution of sociology as a science in the American university from the 1800s to the present. Topics discussed include social and academic attitudes towards sociology and influences of social movements on the study and teaching of sociology and sociological research.