Author gives attention to the aspect of Newman's thought which holds that a liberal education is concerned not so much with gaining knowledge as with an active intellectual involvement with it. (Author/MB)

The 1990 Associated Colleges of the Midwest annual meeting is summarized. The conference was predicated on the assumption that intellectual community is a positive and necessary condition for an effective educational institution, important for the faculty, and vital for the students. Exploration of this theme in conference sessions is reported.…

"Intellectual community" as commonly used is based on a notion of intellectual commonality. However, the liberal arts college has become more diverse. Until higher education can offer some models for combining the values of diversity, it ought not to promote the conventional ideal of intellectual community, which favors some values over…

Liberal arts faculty are ill equipped to teach their disciplines; they are equipped to transmit the latest research results as they define the discipline. Students are not well prepared to respond; they have not been encouraged to enter into others' thinking. Under these conditions, the prospects for intellectual community are not good. (MSE)

The liberal arts curriculum has inherited the discourse of generations, all the richer and more abundant for the contributions those generations have made to it from a variety of sources. This shared human experience is Black as much as it is White, female, or international. (MSE)

Daniel Bell, author and Harvard sociologist, is interviewed. Among the topics discussed are his view of society, his books, ideology, universities and higher education--including Harvard's core curriculum project and the 1968 student revolt at Columbia University, and Israel and the Jewish experience. (JMD)

When students and professors share their work, viewing each other as scholars capable of pursuing edifying research and teachers interested in invigorating classrooms, a vital intellectual community is formed. Small liberal arts colleges must refrain from forcing a generation of teacher-scholars to choose between these two identities. (MSE)

Intellectual community in liberal arts colleges will come to life to the extent that educators take seriously the fundamental genius of colleges to connect knowledge with knowledge and learning with living. Liberal learning and its purposes must be central to faculty lives as teachers and stewards of their institutions. (MSE)

Liberal arts faculty are frustrated by growing and competing professional demands. Promoting the intellectual life of liberal arts college faculty will promote better undergraduate teaching. This means creatively facilitating the research interests of faculty and drawing on those interests to create intellectual community for both faculty and…

Liberal arts college deans have a special responsibility to link faculty needs with institutional resources and goals. Deans need to help faculty members find research projects and approaches that fit the college's resources and to support them in their sometimes competing roles. (MSE)

The quest for diversity must overcome the resistance of traditional White, male faculty to redefining the mission and curriculum of the liberal arts college. Change will be difficult, but it must occur if liberal arts colleges are to survive and maintain a central and relevant place in multicultural America. (MSE)