Intergroup dialogue provides what students need in order to relate and collaborate across differences, something they have to do in community projects that usually involve interactions across racial, social class, religious, and geographical divides. In this article, the authors demonstrate the efficacy of intergroup dialogue, drawing from a…

In a recent survey of Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) member institutions, writing topped the list of desired learning outcomes for all students. Students report being more engaged in courses with intellectually stimulating writing assignments. Indeed, there is a clear consensus on the importance of writing instruction in…

The single most important step colleges and universities--especially public colleges and universities--can take to lower the student and family cost of college attendance is to improve retention, thereby increasing the four-year graduation rate. The author believes that institutions with high rates of retention to graduation have those high rates…

What are the odds of changing the culture of teaching and learning at a regional comprehensive university with twenty-three thousand students? Through the Claiming a Liberal Education (CLE) initiative, a group of faculty and administrators at Grand Valley State University sought to achieve this ambitious goal within the context of the university's…

Experiential learning opportunities can enrich an undergraduate liberal education and produce graduates who are prepared to grapple, imaginatively and responsibly, with the complex challenges they will face throughout their lives. A growing body of empirical evidence supports that contention. Yet much remains to be learned about how to lead…

In this article, the author claims that the steady corporatization of American higher education has threatened to relegate faculty governance, never strong, to the historical archive. In public institutions, faculty disempowerment has been codified by law--legislatures, the governor or county executive or their staff, or state boards of higher…

For the past thirty years, much of the effort to improve the status of women in higher education has focused on the so-called "pipeline" theory, which held that a large number of women undergraduates and graduate students would, over time, yield larger numbers of women at the highest academic ranks. In other words, getting more women into college,…

Substantially different types of universities are finding similar sources of dissatisfaction among their women faculty in the sciences and engineering. A study done in 2001 found that women faculty in Science, Engineering, and Technology (SET) colleges held fewer high-ranking posts than men, were less likely to be full professors, and were more…

AAC&U's ninetieth anniversary offers an opportunity for reflection. Where are we now in our shared commitment to the values and practices of liberal education, and where do we need to go, within the academy as a whole and within the association itself?

Professional education poses compelling pedagogical challenges that can and should inform all sectors of education, including undergraduate liberal education. It is about developing pedagogies to link ideas, practices, and values under conditions of inherent uncertainty that necessitate not only judgment in order to act, but also cognizance of the…

Miners used canaries as early warning signals: when a canary gasped for breath, the miners knew there was a problem with the atmosphere in the mine. The experience of people of color in higher education can be used similarly as a diagnostic tool.

A liberal education is the foundation for success in every growing occupation. Employers do not want, and have not advocated for, students prepared for narrow workforce specialties. But is the traditional framework of liberal education calibrated to the demands of the changing world?

Discussions of world citizenship that elide the challenge of grappling with religious worldviews expose a covert intolerance at the very core of secularism, calling into question the "liberality" of liberal education. The ethical imperative of engaging with different worldviews not only demands that religions be taught, but also raises questions…

Service learning has moved into the mainstream of American higher education as an effective pedagogical approach to improving the teaching and learning of course content, but it has not sufficiently addressed the civic dimensions of the disciplines. The next phase of service learning's development must focus on the achievement of civic learning…

Liberal education needs fewer friends who are merely well meaning and more friends who train themselves to fight for liberal education's distinctive goals--not to mention its very survival--the way they train themselves to be smart, savvy, and successful in their disciplines. The reason liberal education suffers today on all possible…