The field of disability studies combines several disciplines to address the philosophical, moral, legal, medical and cultural questions emerging from the intersection of biotechnology and identity. Such a biocultural approach is crucial not just for scholars in the humanities to know the impact that science has on culture and the body, but also…

In preparation for the 2008 Scholarly Communications Institute (SCI 6) focused on humanities research centers, the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) commissioned a survey of digital humanities centers (DHCs). The immediate goals of the survey were to identify the extent of these centers and to explore their financing,…

This is a unique and groundbreaking collection of questions and answers coming from higher education institutions on diverse fields and across a wide spectrum of countries and cultures. It creates routes for further innovation, collaboration amidst the Sciences (both Natural and Social), the Humanities, and the private and public sectors of…

This paper argues that the current debate over humanities curricula has failed to articulate a vision for humanities education because it has turned on a liberal/conservative axis. It also contends that educators must stop debating elite versus democratic values or traditional versus contemporary problems in humanities education, and start…

A series of articles and essay reviews are represented on issues of concern in humanities education. First, Benjamin DeMott's "A Moral Argument for the Humanities" asserts that humanities instruction should stress certain moral questions, such as the connection of moral life with civilization, individual responsibility, and institutions.…

Designed as a forum for views on issues concerning the humanities in two-year colleges, this journal begins with "A Call for Common Learning," in which Ernest Boyer discusses the goals of education and outlines six themes which students should study to understand themselves, their society, and the world in which they live. Responding to…

TO TEST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A CURRICULUM GUIDE TO BE USED AS THE BASIS FOR HUMANITIES COURSES, THE PENNSYLVANIA HUMANITIES COMMISSION ENCOURAGED VOLUNTARY AND SELF-DIRECTIVE PILOT STUDIES IN 10 SCHOOLS DURING 1965-66. CLASSROOM SESSIONS WERE OBSERVED AND SCHOOL PRINCIPALS, HUMANITIES TEACHERS, AND SMALL GROUP OF PARTICIPATING STUDENTS WERE…

Recent trends towards viewing education only in terms of immediate and measurable results and current conditions that are increasing expenditures and lessening income have resulted in a decreased demand for humanities instruction at community colleges. Despite these trends, humanities courses must be blended with vocational curricula, not to…

Focusing on the decline of history curriculum in the community college, the author compared the types of history courses offered and their frequency (class sections), the relationship of offerings to all other humanities studies, and the strength of areas within history. A subsample of 182 institutions was drawn from a 15% national sample of all…

This monograph reviews the faculty teaching the humanities in two-year colleges: their backgrounds and preparation, involvement with inservice training, job satisfaction, attitudes and values, and approaches to curriculum and instruction. Information was derived by an extensive search of the literature. Materials were identified by scanning 34…

Two sequences of courses at the University of South Carolina offer liberal arts students an introduction to computers and to the relationship between technology and the humanities. These provide training in rigorous thinking and new means of probing the record of human experience. The lower level sequence consists of a general computer…

This paper seeks to explain the epistemological bases for the two cultures and to show why this disciplinary divide continues to plague American academic culture. Next, we discuss strategies for bridging the two cultures through general education curricula which promote mutual understanding of the two cultures while educating students in basic…

In this paper, I explore matters concerning justice and music education. I briefly sketch responses to five interrelated questions: Why should music educators be interested in justice? What is meant by the term social justice and how is it distinguished from justice of other kinds? How do liberal views of humanity, particularly the preciousness of…

When surveys of faculty tell everyone that politically right-of-center voices are now much reduced or even in certain areas largely absent, people can be sure that the academy is damaged in at least one respect: the campus political and social climate will be unrealistic. Programs where this is central, such as political science and sociology,…

When the American Council of Learned Societies held its annual meeting in Montreal last week, topics such as open access, scholarly publishing, and "The Global Academy and the Geography of Ideas" figured on the agenda. This article discusses the first item of business at the meeting: the debut of the Humanities Indicators project, with a first set…