Education Commons^™

Who Are The Part-Time Faculty? There's No Such Thing As A Typical Part-Timer, James Monks

Economics Faculty Publications

The use of contingent faculty in higher education in the United States has grown tremendously over the past three decades. In 1975, only 30.2 percent of faculty were employed part time; by 2005, according to data compiled by the AAUP from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), part-time faculty represented approximately 48 percent of all faculty members in the United States.

Despite the widespread perception that part-time faculty are exploited, underpaid, and afforded miserable working terms and conditions, efforts to organize and unionize contingent faculty have had only limited success. According to the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, …

Teach The Children: Education And Knowledge In Recent Children's Fantasy, Elisabeth Rose Gruner

English Faculty Publications

This essay is an investigation into how learning is portrayed in children's books. It starts from two premises: first, that at least one origin of children's literature is in didacticism, and that learning and pedagogy continue to be important in much of the literature we provide for children today. Thus, for example, David Rudd claims that most histories of children's literature on "the tension between instruction and entertainment," and that the genre as we know it develops within, among other things, "an educational system promoting literacy" (29, 34). Seth Lerer's recent Children's Literature: A Reader's History similarly traces the origins …

Teaching Economics, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

Ethical considerations intersect with economics education on a number of planes. Nonetheless, in terms of curricula, only a handful of economics departments offer courses specifically focused on ethics. This chapter addresses the ways in which instructors can incorporate ethical components into teaching principles and field courses in order to broaden economic understanding and to enhance critical thinking. It examines three pedagogical issues: the artificial dichotomy between positive and normative analysis; the limiting scope of efficiency in outcomes analyses; and the incorporation of alternative ethical frameworks into public policy debates.

Moral Reasoning In Economics, Jonathan B. Wight

Economics Faculty Publications

The Teagle discussion analyzes why economics teachers have become overly narrow in their pedagogical perspectives, thus pulling back from fully supporting the liberal arts agenda. In Chapter 1, Colander and McGoldrick (p. 6) observe that the generalist approach that excites students by asking "big think" questions across disciplinary boundaries fails to generate new knowledge, while the narrow "little think" questions that can be answered often fail to develop the critical thinking skills necessary for liberal education. As one example, the authors cite the decline of moral reasoning in economics, which was once center stage in Adam Smith's analysis of society. …

[Introduction To] Leadership And The Liberal Arts: Achieving The Promise Of A Liberal Education, J. Thomas Wren, Ronald E. Riggio, Michael A. Genovese

Bookshelf

A collection of essays by presidents of prominent liberal arts colleges and leading intellectuals who reflect on the meaning of educating individuals for leadership and how it can be accomplished in ways consistent with the missions of liberal arts institutions. Edited by faculty from the Jepson School for Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, the Jepson Studies in Leadership series will reflect the school's broad-based, liberal arts approach to the study of leadership. The Jepson School has faculty representatives from the disciplines of English literature, history, philosophy, political science, psychology, public administration, religious studies, and organizational leadership. No other …

Intergenerational Learning: Beyond The Jargon, Edward L. Ayers, James L. Narduzzi

School of Professional and Continuing Studies Faculty Publications

Opportunities for intergenerational learning abound on college campuses. The advantages of these experiences for both young and mature learners are well documented, particularly in the context of service learning, civic engagement, and other experiences outside the classroom. Less well documented but no less compelling are the advantages of intergenerational learning within the traditional classroom setting. At the University of Richmond, our vision of intergenerational learning is one where adult students share the college classroom with traditional-aged students, and cross-school collaboration is a central tenet of the learning experience for all students. What follows is a presentation of why we are …

Where The Humanities Live, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

The humanities play an important role at every kind of institution. Approximately 40 percent of all undergraduate humanities degrees come from large research universities, where they account for about 15 percent of all bachelor's degrees. The United States stands in the top third of the percentage of degrees awarded in the humanities and the arts internationally, ranking with Germany and Denmark. English remains the dominant major, producing about a third of all bachelor's degrees in the humanities, followed by general humanities and liberal studies with 26 percent, and history with 18 percent.

On The Humanities, Edward L. Ayers

History Faculty Publications

Although humanists have tended to dwell on simple dichotomies as the source of our problems - the humanities versus virtually any other field of inquiry, scholarship versus teaching, specialization versus public reach, and innovation versus tradition - the real challenge to the humanities lies elsewhere.