At the University System of Maryland (USM), researchers have taken a close look at a recent series of initiatives piloting course redesign (2006-2014). The courses targeted were multi-section developmental and gateway courses with a history of high DFW rates (i.e., a high rate of students receiving a D, fail, or withdraw). The strategy was to…

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…

A curriculum design that focuses on the human sciences, the disciplines that concern themselves with the social and individual activities that are distinctively human, would be a better approach than the current separation of the humanities and social sciences. (MSE)

Four ways in which legal studies can enhance the undergraduate liberal arts curriculum are discussed: the interdisciplinary legal studies course, radical revisions of the liberal arts curriculum, supplementary courses with a practical emphasis, and the legal studies program or department. (MSE)

Educators must reinforce the distinction between the first 2 years of college education, to be reserved for general education, and the second two, in which specialization is appropriate. This might mean only loosening some requirements. In addition, more broad-based introductory courses should be provided for students to choose from. (MSE)

Religion and science have become polarized in modern society, a conflict characteristic of the humanities generally. Comparative religion has a place among the other humanities disciplines, since religion and science have a relationship whose roots go to the basis of our cultural tradition. (MSE)

The past is the substance from which the present is formed, but college curricula based on this cultural heritage need not exclude the present. Major classical writers and social thinkers must be central to it but should be accompanied by critical engagement with living texts from powerful and active minds. (MSE)

Skills and values other than the formal curriculum's content are implicitly taught through the traditional approach to the liberal arts, and some of these may foster development of qualities that are dysfunctional in our society. (MSE)

The interdisciplinary study of science may help reintegrate science into the liberal arts curriculum. Students learning science in courses including historical, philosophical, and social issues are being taught a view of science omitting the myth of value-free investigation and balancing the elements that separate science from other disciplines.…

The use of a learning community approach to college curriculum design is explored, and examples are drawn from the following Temple University (Pennsylvania) and the following Washington colleges: Evergreen State College, North Seattle and Seattle Central Community College, Tacoma Community College, and Lower Columbia College. Contacts for further…

Higher education can resist the need to open the U.S. mind to greater cultural diversity by ignoring the changing ethnic composition of student bodies and larger society, or realize this opportunity to revitalize the social sciences and humanities with a new sense of purpose and more inclusive definition of knowledge. (MSE)

Ethnic studies' interdisciplinary nature and attention to race, ethnicity, gender, and class offer the scholarship and teaching necessary to a field of study appropriate to the liberal arts curriculum. The discipline sheds light on the nature of Western and American experience, and its development can help transform liberal studies. (MSE)

This third article in a series for an American Association of American Colleges and Universities project, "The State of Liberal Education," analyzes findings in five areas of inquiry conceptual foundations, curricular expressions, the phenomena and assessment of liberal learning, institutional mission, and the status and relevance of…

The development of a universitywide general education requirement for undergraduates at the University of California at Davis is outlined, and the lessons learned in the process are discussed. (MSE)

General education programs need not be circuitous or formless. They should: stress development of the intellect; focus on problem-solving skills; integrate general objectives and professional competencies; and foster interdisciplinary studies. (MSE)