Long known as a college-football powerhouse, the University of Alabama (UA) is now considered a model for institutions seeking to maintain or boost their academic quality even as enrollments increase and budgets are squeezed. According to Carol Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), which has been a significant…

A persistent conflict between assessment professionals and faculty members in the humanities seems to focus inevitably on resistance to the concept of interrater reliability. While humanities faculty are often willing to engage in course-embedded assessment that uses some type of scoring rubric, when the demand for agreement in scoring is…

Hegel's master and slave is a significant archetype for graduate research supervision. The master-slave relation vividly exemplifies the hierarchical bond that ties supervisor and student together. Such a confronting view of supervision provides a counterbalance to contemporary emphases on equality between supervisor and student. In what follows,…

"Creativity for a New Curriculum: 5-11" provides an account of what creativity really means in the context of children's learning in the primary school, and describes in practical terms what teachers can do to foster it. At a time of curriculum development and change, it focuses on the opportunity to build a new curriculum that is inclusive of…

The relationship a doctoral student develops with his/her advisor is a crucial aspect of doctoral training across disciplines; but research suggests that many such relationships fall short of a successful apprenticeship or mentoring ideal. Because disciplinary cultures and structures vary considerably, what makes for a successful advising…

In an age of unprecedented scientific achievement, I argue that the neurosciences are poised to transform our perceptions about life on earth, and that collaboration is needed to exploit a vast body of knowledge for humanity's benefit. The scientific method distinguishes science from the humanities and religion. It has evolved into a professional,…

"Standards for Reporting on Humanities-Oriented Research in AERA Publications" has been developed to complement AERA's "Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications." The purpose of providing standards for humanities-oriented research in education is to assist researchers who are preparing manuscripts that are…

"Sound Links" examines the dynamics of community music in Australia, and the models it represents for informal music learning and teaching. This involves researching a selection of vibrant musical communities across the country, exploring their potential for complementarity and synergy with music in schools. This article focuses on the…

Liberal education has been disappearing, and what remains is diminished and compromised. At Temple University, the largest department in the college of liberal arts is criminal justice. The second largest is counseling psychology, and the humanities disciplines have become left-veering sociology. While islands of traditional learning survive, the…

The author, a captain in the U.S. Coast Guard and professor of English at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, argues in this article that, contrary to images perpetuated in popular culture, military officers do not eschew the arts as exemplified in such films as "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket" where the…

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…

As critical component of teachers' expertise, professional vision should be developed during teacher education. Professional vision draws on subject specific and generic knowledge, however, little is known about the knowledge interplay. This study systematically investigated pre-service teachers' (n = 32 majoring in mathematics/science; n = 56 in…

The REDCo project addressed the question of how study of religions and values in schools could contribute to either dialogue or tension in Europe. Researchers in the humanities and social sciences co-operated in order to gain better insight into how European citizens of different religious, cultural and political backgrounds could enter into…

This report describes a conversion experiment and subsequent reader survey conducted by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities E-Book (HEB) in late 2009 and early 2010 to assess the viability of using scholarly monographs with handheld e-readers. As sample content, HEB selected six titles from its own online collection, three…

This paper provides an account of the general political strategy behind the new 14-19 diplomas in England. It considers the rationale and the design process associated with one particular diploma--the Diploma for Humanities and Social Sciences--a qualification that is intended to combine vocational and academic content and purposes. The article…