The University of California-Merced's Core 1 has potential to foster genuine interdisciplinary thinking by asking students to conceptualize knowledge across fields of inquiry. Core 1 introduces students to the range of scholarly inquiry at the university all in the span of one semester-long, writing-intensive, integrated curriculum that encourages…

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…

The purpose of this paper is to share how physical education (PE) offers a unique place of interdisciplinary connections, contributing to coherence in the general education (GE) experience, and to demonstrate the overall value of PE, serving as a rationale for its inclusion in a GE program. A definition of GE is provided, followed by an historical…

Prior to 2003, virtual universities were being created at a rate that would question the usual perception that higher education rarely changed, or changed (if at all) at a glacial speed. No comprehensive study of what was actually being created had been done; nor had anyone tapped the experiences of the developers in the states to see what was…

Presents a rationale for a reassessment of general education. Provides and illustrates a General Education Program Schematic which includes eight concerns: student learning objectives, interdisciplinary approaches, team teaching, community involvement, career awareness, basic business education, computer literacy, and independent study. (AYC)

Making self-authorship a goal of an interdisciplinary multisemester general education program shows great promise for meeting desired undergraduate learning outcomes for citizen-learners. (Contains 1 table.)

Considers the general education component of technical programs as a means of helping adults adjust to today's industrial changes in processes, machines, and management and thereby to hold jobs, move into new ones, and change careers. Reviews the literature on the general education needs of students in high technology programs and models for…

The task of general education should be to provide a broad framework for understanding, an intellectual context within which factual information can meaningfully be comprehended. Each framework should have at least three qualities in common: an historical dimension, an intellectual dimension, and an analytical dimension. (MLW)

The debate over the nature and form of general education is discussed. The Project on General Education Models, which surveyed colleges and universities that had taken concrete steps to review or revise their general education programs, is described. Some new programs are outlined. (MLW)

The current debate about the core curriculum is seen as focusing on "means" rather than the "ends" of general education. Unless the aims of education are debated and some consensus is achieved, it is thought the quality of undergraduate education is not likely to improve. (Author/MLW)

A promising model for professional education is the workshop, studio, or clinic, wherein a team takes on the complexity of actual situations and must figure out what to do. In these situations, individual abstracted problem solving is secondary. In general education, instructors and students are less protected by disciplinary fences. (MLW)

Prepared by the General Education (GE) Review Steering Committee of Massachusetts' Bunker Hill Community College in 1991, this guide presents the Committee's GE curiculum Cornerstone model. Following a short preface which discusses the goals and activities of the Steering Committee, chapter 1 presents a rationale for the model and describes its…

The range of controversies and changes emerging from the current revival of general education are examined, and many ideas, examples, and recommendations for achieving realistic and successful curricular reform are offered. Instead of either offering an apology for general education or advocating any particular approach, the book draws on solid…

A new approach to general education at Bowling Green State University based on "essential skills and functional understandings" is discussed. The model includes skills in: problem solving and critical thinking; reading and writing; computation and mathematics; listening and speaking; and decision-making and values-conflict resolution.…

This collection of speeches and papers is the record of a two-day conference on general education, which focused on articulation, core curricula experiments, and instructional innovations. First, George H. Robertson's welcoming remarks are presented. Then, Donald D. O'Dowd points to evidence of the decline of the liberal arts, reasons for this…