Education Commons^™

High-Impact Practices In Anthropology: Creating A Bridge Between Liberal Arts And Neoliberal Values, Susan Kirkpatrick Smith, Brandon D. Lundy, Cheyenne Dahlmann

Brandon D. Lundy

Neoliberal values are dramatically affecting higher education in the United States, with a focus on running these institutions as businesses and molding students into productive workers. This shift toward training and away from traditional liberal arts education at U.S. universities and colleges has occurred even as studies demonstrate that the ability to adapt in a rapidly evolving marketplace promotes long-term professional success. While neoliberalism and traditional liberal arts education are often seen as antithetical, we show how one anthropology program has combined these values into pedagogical practice through a select subset of high impact practices to improve academic outcomes for …

The Why And Where Of Big History: Building A Program, Mojgan Behmand

Mojgan Behmand

The goals of our First Year Experience program are aligned with our institutional mission, our core values, and the goals of our General Education program. The program is designed to promote: recognition of the personal, communal, and political implications of the Big History story; critical and creative thinking in a manner that awakens curiosity and enhances openness to multiple perspectives; and, development of reading, thinking, and research skills to enhance one’s ability to evaluate and articulate understanding of one’s place in the unfolding universe.

The Digital Mind And The Future Of Liberal Arts Education, Harlan Stelmach, Martin Anderson

Harlan Stelmach

Today higher liberal arts education is challenged by the continuing emphasis on vocational, business, and science majors among administrators and the decline in the demand for humanities majors among students anxious about their economic future. More fundamental and far-reaching, however, are the historic changes in the physical form in which ideas are preserved and communicated, the time people allocate to contemplating those ideas, and the ways people process them as society shifts from the book age into the digital age.1 Those who grew up in the book age can visualize the problem by thinking of this question: What is your …

Big History As General Education, Nicola Pitchford, Mojgan Behmand

Nicola Pitchford

A presentation on the emerging discipline "Big History" and how it could be integrated into the general education curriculum, using the First Year Experience at Dominican University of California as an example.

Big History As General Education, Nicola Pitchford, Mojgan Behmand

Mojgan Behmand

A presentation on the emerging discipline "Big History" and how it could be integrated into the general education curriculum, using the First Year Experience at Dominican University of California as an example.

Breaking Down The Ivory Tower: The (Past And) Future Of Liberal Arts Education, Nicola Pitchford

Nicola Pitchford

The first compelling point Dominican illustrates is that private liberal arts universities can effectively serve the needs and interests of first-generation college students and students of color (respectively, 25% and 46% of our student body). This has been a deliberate commitment at Dominican, but it also demonstrates that broad-based and contextualized learning can be just as appealing and just as relevant as more narrow pre-professional programs to those students and families who are often under the most pressure to consider immediate return on their college investment. There is more to be done yet, in terms of our supporting students and …

Breaking Down The Ivory Tower: The (Past And) Future Of Liberal Arts Education, Nicola Pitchford

Nicola Pitchford

The first compelling point Dominican illustrates is that private liberal arts universities can effectively serve the needs and interests of first-generation college students and students of color (respectively, 25% and 46% of our student body). This has been a deliberate commitment at Dominican, but it also demonstrates that broad-based and contextualized learning can be just as appealing and just as relevant as more narrow pre-professional programs to those students and families who are often under the most pressure to consider immediate return on their college investment. There is more to be done yet, in terms of our supporting students and …

Breaking Down The Ivory Tower: The (Past And) Future Of Liberal Arts Education, Nicola Pitchford

Nicola Pitchford

The first compelling point Dominican illustrates is that private liberal arts universities can effectively serve the needs and interests of first-generation college students and students of color (respectively, 25% and 46% of our student body). This has been a deliberate commitment at Dominican, but it also demonstrates that broad-based and contextualized learning can be just as appealing and just as relevant as more narrow pre-professional programs to those students and families who are often under the most pressure to consider immediate return on their college investment. There is more to be done yet, in terms of our supporting students and …

The Digital Mind And The Future Of Liberal Arts Education, Harlan Stelmach, Martin Anderson

Harlan Stelmach

Today higher liberal arts education is challenged by the continuing emphasis on vocational, business, and science majors among administrators and the decline in the demand for humanities majors among students anxious about their economic future. More fundamental and far-reaching, however, are the historic changes in the physical form in which ideas are preserved and communicated, the time people allocate to contemplating those ideas, and the ways people process them as society shifts from the book age into the digital age.1 Those who grew up in the book age can visualize the problem by thinking of this question: What is your …

The Digital Mind And The Future Of Liberal Arts Education, Harlan Stelmach, Martin Anderson

Harlan Stelmach

Today higher liberal arts education is challenged by the continuing emphasis on vocational, business, and science majors among administrators and the decline in the demand for humanities majors among students anxious about their economic future. More fundamental and far-reaching, however, are the historic changes in the physical form in which ideas are preserved and communicated, the time people allocate to contemplating those ideas, and the ways people process them as society shifts from the book age into the digital age.¹ Those who grew up in the book age can visualize the problem by thinking of this question: What is …

Diversity In Times Of Austerity: Documenting Resistance In The Academy, David Moscowitz, Terri Jett, Terri Carney, Tamara Leech, Ann M. Savage

Terri M. Carney

What happens to feminism in the university is parallel to what happens to feminism in other venues under economic restructuring: while the impoverished nation is forced to cut social services and thereby send women back to the hierarchy of the family, the academy likewise reduces its footprint in interdisciplinary structures and contains academic feminists back to the hierarchy of departments and disciplines. When the family and the department become powerful arbiters of cultural values, women and feminist academics by and large suffer: they either accept a diminished role or are pushed to compete in a system they recognize as antithetical …

How Service-Learning In Spanish Speaks To The Crisis In The Humanities, Terri Carney

Terri M. Carney

Service-learning is a transformational pedagogy with timely application to the teaching and learning of foreign languages. In our current climate of assessment outcomes, language study and the humanities more generally tend to be devalued and rendered invisible by utilitarian models of evaluation. Incorporating service-learning courses and experiences into the foreign language classroom provides real- world immersion for students in their local linguistic and cultural communities, satisfies teachers’ desires to connect teaching and research to local community issues, and allows departments to meet institutional and educational goals. Indeed, service-learning points us to new definitions of old concepts—such as the role of …

Still Happening, Yet Still Problematic: The 21st Century Du Bois And Washington Debate, Donald Mitchell Jr., Adriana Almanza, Adriel A. Hilton, Barbara Spraggins

Donald Mitchell Jr., Ph.D.