In the midst of the worst public health crisis to hit the nation in a hundred years, and in a moment of racial reckoning, widespread economic uncertainty, and geopolitical instability, it may seem strange to be thinking about a Second American Century. But many times in the past, when faced with great threats and challenges, the nation has created…

In 2020, Carol Leary will be retiring as president of Bay Path University after twenty-five years. Her career in education, however, has spanned more than four decades. As she prepares to move on to the next chapter of her life, she reflects on her Bay Path journey and shares her optimism about the challenges higher education faces today. She…

Academic freedom is undoubtedly a core value of higher education, but should it sometimes be compromised in order to accommodate efforts to tackle the many considerable challenges of the twenty-first century, from fighting climate change and global pandemics to reckoning with the stubborn legacies of institutional racism? More specifically, can…

It is perhaps more evident now than at any other time in human history that current technologies are racing ahead while skills and organizations are lagging behind. In the context of such uncertainty, Maxine Greene's and Theodore Sizer's ideas about empowering students to develop resiliency, perspective, judgment, and flexibility, as well…

For centuries, educators and philosophers have explored the benefits that a broad liberal education can offer to individuals and societies. More recently, prominent educational leaders have continued to articulate the value of a liberal education in the digital age. In this article, the author presents the prospects and limits of online liberal…

In 2011, the New American Colleges and Universities established a national award to honor the legacy of Ernest L. Boyer by recognizing an individual whose achievements in higher education exemplify Boyer's quest for connecting theory to practice and thought to action, in and out of the classroom. The 2014 Boyer Award was presented to Edward L.…

Conceived in Paris in 1998 and born in 1999 in Bologna, the European higher education reform initiative known as the Bologna Process approaches its fifteenth birthday. As is the case with some adolescents, there are problems. If we were to plan a party for the occasion, we might encounter diverse reflections. First, we would be proud of what our…

The structure of higher education today, in conjunction with those actively trying to devalue a liberal arts degree in the public sphere, has set the table for what seems like a completely rational solution: finding a "niche." Broadly speaking, colleges offering a liberal arts education identify their "niche market" in terms of…

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 American higher education system, arguably the mightiest arrow in America's competitiveness quiver, is facing a perfect storm. Government support is declining, and tuition is rising; international competition for student and faculty talent is intensifying; and a technological revolution in pedagogy is gathering momentum. Academia, government,…

The United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, has a clear and well-understood mission: to prepare leaders for service in the U.S. Navy or Marine Corps. Most people know something about "Navy." But what most people don't know is that Navy also provides a top liberal education to all midshipmen, and that one of the central elements of that…

As the research interests and the focus of traditional earth scientists are transformed, so too must education in earth system science at colleges and universities across the country change. The required change involves not only the methods used to teach this new science, but also the essential place of the earth sciences in the panoply of…

Explores leadership concepts in the context of the original learned professions and contemporary needs for understanding the academic mission of colleges and universities. Suggests that at a time of market pressure for economic efficiency, primary authority and the faculty exercise of authority in shared governance are crucial issues for higher…

A personal reflection on the role of the humanities in undergraduate education, offered to future teachers by a future-oriented "traditionalist." (Editor/PG)

Discusses the opportunities college and university presidential leaders have to contribute the resources of their institutions to public service. Leaders in higher education must keep the balance between free speech and civility and maintain the small world that is the university as a model of what the greater world should be. (SLD)