You can acquire knowledge, understanding, and habits of mind by studying James Joyce that are invaluable in a variety of ways and that many employers would like to see in their employees. What multinational organization, for instance, does not want professionals who, blending accepted wisdom with forward thinking, can critically assess business…

When faced with pervasive--and increasingly creative--forms of plagiarism and cheating, what should faculty members do? Give in? Give up? Or should they consider the classic break-up line "It's not you--it's me" and make changes in the ways they assess student learning? If faculty truly wish to increase student success and decrease acts…

The authors, Bertha Alvarez Manninen, a pro-choice associate professor of philosophy at Arizona State University, and Jack Mulder Jr., a pro-life professor of philosophy at Hope College in Michigan have argued with each other since graduate school about abortion and other issues, while respecting each other's stances and friendship. In the current…

Founded in the American colonies and later on the frontier, the nation's liberal arts colleges were charged with providing a broad-based education that would prepare students for a wide variety of professions. These early institutions looked to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who, keenly aware that a successful republic required creative free…

American colleges and universities are facing a civic imperative. The nation is floundering, if not unwinding. Democracies are vulnerable social constructions. They flourish in eras of social consensus and economic prosperity, when citizens believe in the prospect of brighter futures. They stumble, if not decay, during times of harsh economic…

September marked the tenth anniversary of the release of "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of US Higher Education," the report of the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education, also known as the Spellings Commission. Blue ribbon panels rarely say much that is new or stimulate much sustained attention,…

Myanmar has emerged from a military dictatorship and taken important steps toward greater democratization. The new ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), and its de facto head, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, are proponents of educational reform, and are slowly refurbishing dilapidated campuses, supporting new education…

In this article, the authors propose the use of new terminology when discussing teaching evaluations. Surveys can be considered as providing students an opportunity for "feedback" about teachers, not "evaluations" of teachers. Students, professors, and administrators should not view the surveys as an opportunity to judge a…

Classrooms should be liberatory spaces where people are nurtured and content comes to life. But students and faculty frequently note the charged nature of the classroom, especially when course content focuses on aspects of identity such as race and ethnicity or dynamics related to power and inequality. This article describes a Faculty Dialogues…

At colleges and universities, thinking one's own thoughts is at the heart of all the other activity that, together, constitutes a liberal education. Self-examination and reflection enable people to make sense of the world and their places in it. Each individual can experience the mind as it grasps its own dynamics and spawns deep and unique…

This article by José Antonio Bowen was presented at the 2014 annual meeting of the "Association of American Colleges and Universities" where the discussion included the question of how technology was bringing new tools and new competition to higher education, but was also changing basic rules about how "we operate" as human…

The Turing era, defined by British mathematician and computer science pioneer Alan Turing's question about whether or not computers can think, is not over. Philosophers and scientists will continue to haggle over whether thought necessitates intentionality, and whether computation can rise to that level. Meanwhile, another frontier is emerging in…

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…

In this article, Jose Antonio Bowen, president of Goucher College, writes that a new technological society inclusive of all students and graduates, a new model of education geared toward the learning economy, where more--maybe even most--content learning takes place after graduation may be required. Bowen believes that in order to prepare students…

The physical fitness required to perform complex athletic feats has a parallel in the intellectual fitness it takes to perform complex mental tasks. At the heart of liberal education sits the idea that moderate training in several disciplines is better than intensive training in just one. Through exercising students' abilities in interpreting…