It is no secret that humanities professors find themselves disenchanted by the current state of neoliberal universities; as the story goes, jobs are scarce, enrollment continues to drop, and students seem increasingly disconnected from the value of humanities-based classes. Universities and departments strive for new ways to respond to the current…

The range of challenges for educators in the graduate school setting includes students' differences associated with age, language barriers, learning styles, disability, and culture. The literature also demonstrates student populations in higher education differ in academic ability, gender, socioeconomic factors, religion, and life experiences.…

This report describes the rationale, goals, and activities of the Strengthening Michigan Humanities (MiHumanities) project, an effort led by the Michigan Community College Association (MCCA) and funded by the Mellon Foundation. The project is designed to strengthen community college transfer pathways in four humanities fields--communication,…

Both majors and course enrollments in the liberal arts have been in decline since the recession of 2007. The College of Liberal Arts at Purdue University has sought to reverse this by offering a new outreach program to science, technology, engineering, and math, and management students called Cornerstone. Cornerstone is a 15-credit-hour…

This research explores faculty development through the lens of academic division as an important, career defining characteristic of the professoriate. Relying on data from a longitudinal, mixed-methods study, the authors examined faculty development trends and needed supports in a consortium of 13 liberal arts colleges (LACs). As part of this…

Derrida's account of Kant's and Schelling's writings on the origins of the modern university are interpreted to show that theoretical positions attempting to oversee and master the contemporary university find themselves destabilized or deconstructed. Two examples of contemporary attempts to install the liberal arts as the guardians and overseers…

Academics can be too snug in their institutional silos. They sometimes think of one another as competitors for students, and as a result they duplicate scarce resources in mutually damaging ways. In this article, the author wants to argue that teaching-focused institutions have much to gain from partnerships with research universities on the…

This quasi-experimental, mixed methods study analyzes the effects of the flipped classroom on the variables of a critical thinking rubric used by a Christian liberal arts college and compares these results with those of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (CCTST). Second, this dissertation examines the effects of the flipped classroom on…

This is a quantitative, survey-based study of Iowa community college faculty members. The survey was administered in the spring of 2011 to all faculty members identified by their colleges as being employed full time. This study compares the demographics of math and science faculty members to faculty within the arts and sciences who do not teach…

In this article, the authors discuss contemporary challenges. David Berry offers advice on teaching the humanities at a community college; Gerald Graff examines how the traditional organization of universities undermines student learning; and Cary Nelson considers the effects on the humanities of the increasing reliance on contingent faculty.

Conservatives are a small minority within the American professoriate, according to a major study whose results were released this month. The study, arguably the best-designed survey of American faculty beliefs since the early 1970s, found that only 9.2 percent of college instructors are conservatives, and that only 20.4 percent voted for George W.…

Fluency in information technology (IT Fluency) is a component of life-long learning necessary for a Liberal Arts student's post-graduate success in the global and digital economy. While challenging, promoting IT fluency at Liberal Arts colleges can be achieved through the integration of digital storytelling pedagogy in existing humanities…

Many professors and graduate students finishing their Ph.D.'s at the University of California at Berkeley scoffed at the idea of a post at a liberal-arts college. To them it was considered an acceptable choice only if none of the jobs at research universities came through. Liberal-arts colleges were viewed merely as teaching institutions and did…

SCHOLARS MUST RECOGNIZE AND UNDERSTAND THE KNOWLEDGE EXPLOSION IN THE HUMANITIES. THERE ARE AN INCREASING NUMBER OF LANGUAGES, LITERATURES, AND ORAL TRADITIONS AVAILABLE FOR STUDY AS WELL AS NEW MATERIALS, INSIGHTS, AND TECHNIQUES OF STUDY IN EVERY HUMANISTIC FIELD. BUT BEYOND THE QUANTITY AND VARIETY IN RESEARCH, THE KNOWLEDGE EXPLOSION INVOLVES…

Recent trends towards viewing education only in terms of immediate and measurable results and current conditions that are increasing expenditures and lessening income have resulted in a decreased demand for humanities instruction at community colleges. Despite these trends, humanities courses must be blended with vocational curricula, not to…