American colleges and universities are currently in the midst of a vital movement to reinvent liberal education. It is difficult to give a fully accurate description of the agenda of this movement, however, because it is being advanced by a number of disparate groups and organizations. In this paper, the author begins by stipulating what liberal…

It is both possible and desirable to define liberal education in "global" terms. But the author argues that no effort to provide such an education can possibly succeed without a solid curricular base, which must be the focus of any discussion of the relationship between global and liberal education. In this article, the author looks at the rise of…

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…

Ethical reasoning is a way of thinking about issues of right and wrong. Processes of reasoning can be taught, and school is an appropriate place to teach them. The reason is that, although parents and religious schools may teach ethics, they do not always teach ethical reasoning--or at least, they do not always do so with great success. They may…

In the Fall of 2009, the author participated in the sixth conference of Interfaith Youth Core, an organization and social movement devoted to building "mutal respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others". On that occasion, Dr. Eboo Patel, founder and executive…

For more than a century, the debate over evolution and creationism has affected academia at nearly every level. Although it distracts from core issues in many academic contexts, the debate can sometimes be pedagogically useful. It can be used pedagogically to examine how scientific predictions are made, how evidence is applied, and how it is…

Recognition of the importance of outcomes related to moral and ethical development, other dimensions of personal development, and civic engagement is a result of decades of educational reform. But have colleges and universities succeeded in helping students achieve these outcomes? In this article, the author shares his personal reflections on…

In this article, the author talks about California's Master Plan for Higher Education, which offered a vision of access, affordability, and quality that was bold, inspiring, and attainable. It was predicated on the understanding that an educational system with such characteristics is essential to the cultural, political, and economic health of a…

A mixture of integrative learning and interdisciplinary studies, appropriately conceived and well grounded in academic disciplines, constitutes the most effective education for a complex world. But how exactly should interdisciplinary studies and integrative learning be conceived? In this article, the author sketches a focused vision for…

In a professional setting where promotion requirements insist on the maintenance of the laser-like focus developed by graduate school training, how can one prepare faculty to teach courses that incorporate broad skills and make connections across disciplinary boundaries? This article presents one liberal arts college's answer to this question--a…

Higher education in Hong Kong is currently undergoing a dramatic transformation, as it moves from a three-year British model to a four-year American model. To assist with the effort, five Fulbright Scholars in General Education are sent each year to Hong Kong universities, where they are discovering striking similarities with developments in US…

It has been over twenty years since the publication of reports calling for increased efforts to reform undergraduate STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education. There are more STEM classrooms today that utilize "pedagogies of engagement" than there were twenty years ago; however, these kinds of learning environments are…

In addition to dealing with the more or less obvious variables that affect classroom dynamics, teachers need to learn how to deal with the far more difficult issues related to learning, identity, selfhood, and autonomy. In this article, the author first discusses classroom issues that are most visible and vivid for teachers. Next, the author…

Computer science and the liberal arts have much to offer each other. Yet liberal arts colleges, in particular, have been slow to recognize the opportunity that the study of computer science provides for achieving the goals of a liberal education. After the precipitous drop in computer science enrollments during the first decade of this century,…

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…