As the research interests and the focus of traditional earth scientists are transformed, so too must education in earth system science at colleges and universities across the country change. The required change involves not only the methods used to teach this new science, but also the essential place of the earth sciences in the panoply of…

Examines contemporary models of undergraduate education, including their historical development and the reforms of the 1960's, asking whether the many social, political, and intellectual directions demand corresponding curricular responses or a new synthesis. Concludes that social complexity calls for emphasis on the aesthetic and intuitive as…

The American undergraduate arts and sciences curriculum is a great accomplishment, but is in danger of collapsing under the weight of its own successes, to its own detriment and society's. Its cultural and intellectual foundations are crumbling and must be reestablished. (MSE)

Despite perceived threats to the humanities, the academic profession can reassert its integrity and shape the futures of institutions by using existing networks and organizations to change the formal structure of education to improve its product. (MSE)

Interdisciplinary studies are not only desirable but possible in the fiscal, ideological, and organizational context of the 1980s. Interdisciplinary studies are defined as inquiries that draw critically upon two or more disciplines and that lead to an integration of disciplinary insights. (MLW)

Concern is expressed about the measures that enrollment-driven colleges are taking to survive: destructive competitive practices may result in scrambled curricula and scrambled college identities. State control is an increasingly real possibility if such developments get out of hand. (MSE)

A national survey of higher education stakeholders, including college-bound students, parents, executives, human resource managers, and recent graduates, found agreement that problem solving, critical thinking, and writing/oral skills can be defined as career skills and are the most important goals of higher education. However, many don't…

This paper contends that trends in business (restructuring, downsizing, decentralization, managerial empowerment, internationalization) strongly imply a need to reorganize the college curriculum to provide future professionals with the skills and intellect to meet multiple economic and organizational challenges. This means a new learning model and…

The Association of American Colleges and Universities' national initiative for college curriculum and faculty development, entitled "American Commitments: Diversity, Democracy, and Liberal Learning," is described; and a panel discussion of two central themes, which concern cultural pluralism in higher education, is summarized. (MSE)

Because of the rapid evolution of electronic publishing and information technology, books will be only one of a wide variety of formats for information exchange. In undergraduate study as in other areas, the future of books is dependent on the continuing habitual tendency and preference of adults to read text. (MSE)

The Association of American Colleges and Universities' statement calling for a national dialog about effective higher education is presented. It examines the considerable task institutions face in educating a generation of students in an era of near-universal postsecondary education, fundamental choices to be made, mixed signals in public policy,…

Society is gaining in its ability to produce, but struggling to use the fruits of that productivity wisely. For higher education to play its best and appropriate roles, the capacity for innovation needs to be regenerated and encouraged. Technology will play a significant role in creating opportunities for fundamentally different ways of providing…