Education is often discussed in low-level utilitarian terms: how can educators produce technically trained people who can hold onto "their" share of the global market? With the rush to profitability, values precious for the future of democracy are in danger of getting lost. The profit motive suggests to most concerned politicians that science and…

When Americans talk about access to a college education, they tend to narrow the acceptable boundaries of the conversation. They ask why the cost of college has gotten so out of control compared to the costs of other goods and services, and they sometimes talk about the closely related subject of financial aid. But very rarely do Americans discuss…

At the time of the founding of the Association of American Colleges in 1915, the role of the four-year, residential, undergraduate college in American higher education was being challenged by the expansion of the state universities. In some regions of the country, leaders of the undergraduate colleges, whether denominational or independent, saw…

Explores appropriate ways of including the contemplative and spiritual within higher education's disciplinary search for truth. (EV)

Addresses the important role education has played in raising standards of living and the particular role of the liberal arts in promoting the creative intellectual energy that is an increasingly important part of the economy. (EV)

Asserts that a sense of vocation implies knowing one's self, one's beliefs and values, and one's position in the world. Suggests that a central goal of contemporary undergraduate education should be to cultivate an initial sense of vocation. (EV)

Explores how the complexity of citizenship provides a lens through which one might view such issues as globalization, human rights, and the relation between nation states and citizens. (EV)

Explores why, following September 11, historical education should provide a framework that eschews pronouncements about our own superiority and prompts greater self-consciousness among Americans and greater knowledge of those arrayed against us. (EV)

Discusses changes in ethics' role in public life: (1) many people who live morally are insisting that institutions do the same; (2) while ethics have been used to humanize power, ethics now are power; and (3) private values that provided moral strength at the dawning of nation states must be transformed into public values for an interdependent…

Asserts that the unity that comes out of a diverse society depends on the development of cognitive, social, and democratic skills, dispositions, and values. Explains that research is in progress as to how this can take place during the college years. (EV)

Asserts that an intellectual community is called upon to educate students to become morally sophisticated and to take their moral reasoning capacity into a society with complex pressures. Explores key questions that must be addressed to create a space where such learning can happen. (EV)

Asserts that the interdependence that characterizes the contemporary world is undermined by the commercialization and privatization pervading U.S. society with consumerist pressures reaching even into school programs, but that terrorism has dramatically underlined global interdependence and public responsibilities. Explores what makes an adequate…

In working with urban poverty, the director of Heads Up-DC discusses his experience in providing services to public school students through involving college students as teachers and mentors. (EV)

Excerpts from three speeches given at 1999 annual meeting of the Association of American Colleges and Universities focus on the current and future state of the professoriate. Notes that erosion of faculty governance, faculty prerogatives, and tenure-track positions have had a negative impact on the profession and have led to practices that exploit…

The School of New Resources is described as a liberal arts program that helps adults enrich their lives by building on their life experiences within a formal learning environment. Core courses culminate in a seminar to integrate or synthesize the educational process and reinforce the humanistic thrust of the program. (Author/MLW)