The United Arab Emirates is developing higher education institutions that will contribute to an educational sector providing premium degree programs. There was a belief that the recognition and achievements these institutions attained over decades in their native land would be transferable in the implementation of international branch campuses.…

The author looks at the traditional lofty goals set for students in study abroad programs in the United States, such as enhancing students' intercultural skills and helping them become global citizens. But he finds that students at Northwestern University in Qatar are already multiethnic and multicultural and speak at least two languages.…

Most students enter Northwestern University in Qatar (NU-Q) poorly prepared to face the challenges and seize the opportunities of an American-style education grounded in the liberal arts owing to their inadequate preparation in grade school. NU-Q's mission is to produce graduates who will be leaders and innovators in the media industry and…

Higher education institutions today are increasingly considered to be "means," serving as suppliers for employers, not "ends" that address "wicked" problems. This disregards their role in the generational succession of civil societies. Massive open online courses can strengthen higher education institutions by working…

Schools are scrambling to prepare their students for the writing assessments in correlation with the Common Core tests. In some states, writing has not been assessed for more than a decade. Yet, with the use of computerized grading of the students' writing, many teachers are wondering how to best prepare students for the writing assessments,…

This article is critical of the implementation of massive open online courses (MOOCs) by institutions seeking the deep student learning often found in general education learning outcomes. Customized student interaction with an expert in the field is rendered impossible by the scale of mooc enrollment. Concerns are also raised about the economic…

This ethnographic study examines the negotiation of the value of critical thinking by a group of community college students and their instructor in a required general education literature course. Using a sociological analysis, the authors explore how the students situated themselves as both learners and consumers in the classroom, a social field…

General education is at the forefront of the challenges facing faculty and administrators as they develop initiatives to address the nationwide trend focused on college completion programs. Attempts to trim core requirements and shift courses to online environments could be one answer for providing greater course access, for improving enrollments,…

Massive open online courses (MOOCs ) are much less in the news today--but that does not mean that they are no longer important. Rather, their importance now derives from what they demonstrated about the fractured nature of college curricula. Almost all MOOCs were one-offs--a single instructor/performer and a well-bounded subject. MOOCs almost…

With the hope of inspiring readers to reimagine the centrality of general education in constituting young adult capacities to create and sustain collective self-governance, this essay describes two courses and one activity built around public problems. General education viewed as a human right as well as a shared responsibility can thus serve as a…

The component of the baccalaureate degree referred to as general education is at risk. General education is losing traction in the curriculum, as calls for graduate students on a faster time schedule and a desire to produce readily employable graduates head the list of higher education objectives. Little attention is paid to how students come to…

The assessment of general education is often approached through broad surveys or standardized instruments that fail to capture the learning goals most faculty members desire for this portion of the curriculum. The challenge in remedying this situation lies, first, in defining general education in meaningful ways that can be both articulated and…

We in higher education have allowed the balance of the private and public purposes of liberal education to become skewed in our angst over fully embracing a central role in restoring prosperity and preparing our increasingly diverse population for the evolving responsibility of mending our fraying democracy. As we consider how best to reshape…

An analysis of interviews, focus-group discussions, assessment instruments, and assignment prompts revealed that within general education, faculty assessed critical thinking as faceted using methods and criteria that varied epistemically across disciplines. Faculty approaches were misaligned with discipline-general institutional approaches.…

This essay explores why, despite repeated affirmations of the importance of civic education in undergraduate education, preparing students to understand and play an active role in democratic life is, for the most part, a marginal and episodic part of the undergraduate experience. After describing various factors that have contributed to its…