This special issue of "Journal for Learning through the Arts" focuses on the uses of literature and arts in medical education. The introductory article addresses current debate in the field of medical humanities (MH), namely the existential question of what is the purpose of integrating humanities/arts in medical education; and then…

The author uses game theoretical models to identify technical communication breakdowns encountered during the notoriously confusing Texas Two-Step voting and caucusing process. Specifically, the author uses narrative theory and game theory to highlight areas where caucus participants needed instructions to better understand the rules of the game…

Medieval Day at Reynolds turned a typical Friday class day into an interdisciplinary learning event, which joined faculty and students into a community of learners. From classrooms issued tales of Viking and Mongol conquests, religious crusaders, deadly plague, and majestic cathedrals and art, all told by costumed faculty members with expertise in…

Research on children, young people and religion is becoming more prevalent following an increased interest in this traditionally under-researched area. However, little discussion has taken place to date on the appropriateness of past frameworks for making sense of children's religious lives. This article calls attention to the issue of religious…

American higher education has been in almost perpetual crisis for several generations, with students experiencing fragmentation and loss of coherence across the curriculum. Most liberal arts colleges in the 19th century had a required senior course in "moral philosophy" to integrate the curriculum and prepare students for future leadership, but…

Those who work in all sectors of higher education--from community and liberal arts colleges to undergraduate programs in public and research universities--often assert that a "liberal education" is precisely the kind of undergraduate education that is needed for both living and working in the challenging 21st-century world. "Liberal education" or…

This paper reports on an instrument designed to assess the practices and beliefs of instructors of introductory statistics courses across the disciplines. Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, this project developed, piloted, and gathered validity evidence for the Statistics Teaching Inventory (STI). The instrument consists of 50…

We describe a non-statistics, data-based activity developed by the author for an interdisciplinary course on mathematics and politics that uses actual ballot data from the City of San Francisco, California. The assignment is appropriate for a general education audience and develops students' ability to work with data, improves their understanding…

The author talks about a new generation of Ph.D.'s that is advancing the field with a multidisciplinary approach. Like their predecessors who worked to establish black studies as a respected academic discipline, today's Ph.D. students are also attracted to the social mission of the field. But younger black-studies scholars are willing to work with…

In the context of business schools, the word "leadership" is widely used in missions, visions, and marketing materials. However, underlying support and the infrastructure to truly develop leaders may be lacking. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the challenges and issues facing leadership education in the context of business…

This paper attempts to renegotiate the conceptual and political borders of intercultural education by importing ways of thinking, concepts, aporias and questions relevant to a gendered study of intercultural interactions from theoretical terrains outside the disciplinary borders and discursive limits of intercultural education. A number of…

This paper connects Bourdieu's concepts of habitus, dispositions and capital with a psychosocial analysis of how Winnicott's psychoanalysis and Honneth's recognition theory can be of importance in understanding how and why non-traditional students remain in higher education. Understanding power relations in an interdisciplinary way makes…

In traditional preservice teacher education programs, education courses are "add-ons" to science content courses. As a result, future teachers are taught the importance of authentic inquiry and constructivism, but they may never learn science in the way they are expected to teach it. University of California San Diego's California Teach…

The engagement of academics in organizational change in higher education institutions is generally understood as involving a wide range of behaviors, and previous studies have situated academics' actions at various points along a continuum between passivity and pro-activity. This article complements this approach by asking how--rather than in…

This ethnographic study documents how a space for critical literacy practices emerged as one teacher attempted to make literacy learning authentic. The school lunch program in an urban elementary district provided the theme for an authentic and focused literacy unit. Throughout this focus unit, the students not only met state standards but also…