Download or read book The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs written by Richard A. Detweiler and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education: how and why it has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment. In ongoing debates over the value of a college education, the role of the liberal arts in higher education has been blamed by some for making college expensive, impractical, and even worthless. Defenders argue that liberal arts education makes society innovative, creative, and civic-minded. But these qualities are hard to quantify, and many critics of higher education call for courses of study to be strictly job-specific. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Detweiler, drawing on interviews with more than 1,000 college graduates aged 25 to 65, offers empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education. Detweiler finds that a liberal arts education has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment over a lifetime. Unlike other defenders of a liberal arts education, Detweiler doesn’t rely on philosophical arguments or anecdotes but on data. He developed a series of interview questions related to the content attributes of liberal arts (for example, course assignments and majors), the context attributes (out-of-class interaction with faculty and students, teaching methods, campus life), and the purpose attributes (adult life outcomes). Interview responses show that although both the content of study and the educational context are associated with significant life outcomes, the content of study has less relationship to positive adult life outcomes than the educational context. The implications of this research, Detweiler points out, range from the advantages of broadening areas of study to factors that could influence students’ decisions to attend certain colleges.
Download or read book Why Choose the Liberal Arts written by Mark William Roche and published by University of Notre Dame Pess. This book was released on 2010-08-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a world where the value of a liberal arts education is no longer taken for granted, Mark William Roche lucidly and passionately argues for its essential importance. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience in higher education as a student, faculty member, and administrator, Roche deftly connects the broad theoretical perspective of educators to the practical needs and questions of students and their parents. Roche develops three overlapping arguments for a strong liberal arts education: first, the intrinsic value of learning for its own sake, including exploration of the profound questions that give meaning to life; second, the cultivation of intellectual virtues necessary for success beyond the academy; and third, the formative influence of the liberal arts on character and on the development of a sense of higher purpose and vocation. Together with his exploration of these three values—intrinsic, practical, and idealistic—Roche reflects on ways to integrate them, interweaving empirical data with personal experience. Why Choose the Liberal Arts? is an accessible and thought-provoking work of interest to students, parents, and administrators.
Download or read book In Defense of a Liberal Education written by Fareed Zakaria and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition. The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. "I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted. Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education. Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.
Download or read book You Can Do Anything written by George Anders and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2017-08-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a tech-dominated world, the most needed degrees are the most surprising: the liberal arts Did you take the right classes in college? Will your major help you get the right job offers? For more than a decade, the national spotlight has focused on science and engineering as the only reliable choice for finding a successful post-grad career. Our destinies have been reduced to a caricature: learn to write computer code or end up behind a counter, pouring coffee. Quietly, though, a different path to success has been taking shape. In YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, George Anders explains the remarkable power of a liberal arts education - and the ways it can open the door to thousands of cutting-edge jobs every week. The key insight: curiosity, creativity, and empathy aren't unruly traits that must be reined in. You can be yourself, as an English major, and thrive in sales. You can segue from anthropology into the booming new field of user research; from classics into management consulting, and from philosophy into high-stakes investing. At any stage of your career, you can bring a humanist's grace to our rapidly evolving high-tech future. And if you know how to attack the job market, your opportunities will be vast. In this book, you will learn why resume-writing is fading in importance and why "telling your story" is taking its place. You will learn how to create jobs that don't exist yet, and to translate your campus achievements into a new style of expression that will make employers' eyes light up. You will discover why people who start in eccentric first jobs - and then make their own luck - so often race ahead of peers whose post-college hunt focuses only on security and starting pay. You will be ready for anything.
Download or read book Beyond the University written by Michael S. Roth and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-28 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student’s capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America’s long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.
Download or read book Liberal Arts at the Brink written by Victor E. Ferrall and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-15 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Liberal arts colleges represent a tiny portion of the higher education market, yet produce a stunning percentage of America’s leaders. But the demand for career-related education has pressured them to become vocational, distorting their mission and core values. This book is a wake-up call for everyone who values liberal arts education.
Download or read book Doing Liberal Arts Education written by Mikiko Nishimura and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-10 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines and shares concrete and specific strategies and policies for doing liberal arts education in a wide range of contexts. It deepens readers’ understanding of the processes of adopting interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approaches to the development and teaching of liberal arts courses, integrating diversity and inclusion in policies and practices of liberal arts education, and institutionalizing evidence-based policy making. Moreover, it provides educators and policymakers with practical guidelines on how to incorporate core values of liberal arts education.
Download or read book The Post Pandemic Liberal Arts College written by Steve Volk and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A succinct and impassioned call to reimagine the small liberal arts college, by two veteran educators. Private liberal arts colleges have struggled for decades; now, as the COVID-19 pandemic widens cracks latent in many American
Download or read book Crisis in Higher Education written by Jeffrey R. Docking and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2015-02-01 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2005 Adrian College was home to 840 enrolled students and had a tuition income of $8.54 million. By fall of 2011, enrollment had soared to 1,688, and tuition income had increased to $20.45 million. For the first time in years, the small liberal arts college was financially viable. Adrian College experienced this remarkable growth during the worst American economy in seventy years and in a state ravaged by the decline of the big three auto companies. How, exactly, did this turnaround happen? Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America was written to facilitate replication and generalization of Adrian College’s tremendous enrollment growth and retention success since 2005. This book directly addresses the economic competitiveness of small four-year institutions of higher education and presents an evidence-based solution to the enrollment and economic crises faced by many small liberal arts colleges throughout the country.
Download or read book Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads written by Sheila Curran and published by Ten Speed Press. This book was released on 2012-06-20 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people would love to have 20/20 hindsight on their careers. In Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads, college career experts Sheila Curran and Suzanne Greenwald have assembled the next best thing: the collective wisdom of a diverse and inspiring cast of success stories—twenty-three liberal arts graduates who have gone on to all manner of fascinating and satisfying professions. The authors have combined lessons from the stories with their own hands-on experience with thousands of students and graduates to outline a framework for finding a perfect career. What makes Smart Moves different is that it provides essential career advice while being fun to read. Readers will be struck by the frankness of the biographies of real graduates whose careers have taken twists and turns. Todd turned his passion into a living as the founder and CEO of several small businesses and a professional cellist; Thad's path took him from English major to a dream job in the front office of a major league baseball team; and a subway ride helped Sharon speed her intended career leap from a luxury department store to journalism. What binds them together is that they have all made smart moves on the way to career success—both during their liberal arts education and in the real world.Smart Moves not only champions the value of a liberal arts education, it also embraces the complexity of careers, and the notion that many different factors contribute to success: education, experience, attitude, personal characteristics, and a good dose of luck. Smart Moves is an inspiration to all those who are seeking proven strategies to follow their passion—no matter what their age.The quarter million liberal arts students who receive diplomas each year will truly benefit from the insights of Smart Moves. But this book is equally helpful for high school students (and their guidance counselors) looking at colleges, for graduates still looking for their life's work, and for parents who want to understand career realities for their children. An innovative career guide for our stressful, fast-paced world, Smart Moves for Liberal Arts Grads illuminates valuable career lessons with sharp advice and an unparalleled framework for success.
Download or read book Cultivating Humanity written by Martha C. Nussbaum and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1998-10-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can higher education today create a community of critical thinkers and searchers for truth that transcends the boundaries of class, gender, and nation? Martha C. Nussbaum, philosopher and classicist, argues that contemporary curricular reform is already producing such “citizens of the world” in its advocacy of diverse forms of cross-cultural studies. Her vigorous defense of “the new education” is rooted in Seneca’s ideal of the citizen who scrutinizes tradition critically and who respects the ability to reason wherever it is found—in rich or poor, native or foreigner, female or male. Drawing on Socrates and the Stoics, Nussbaum establishes three core values of liberal education: critical self-examination, the ideal of the world citizen, and the development of the narrative imagination. Then, taking us into classrooms and campuses across the nation, including prominent research universities, small independent colleges, and religious institutions, she shows how these values are (and in some instances are not) being embodied in particular courses. She defends such burgeoning subject areas as gender, minority, and gay studies against charges of moral relativism and low standards, and underscores their dynamic and fundamental contribution to critical reasoning and world citizenship. For Nussbaum, liberal education is alive and well on American campuses in the late twentieth century. It is not only viable, promising, and constructive, but it is essential to a democratic society. Taking up the challenge of conservative critics of academe, she argues persuasively that sustained reform in the aim and content of liberal education is the most vital and invigorating force in higher education today.
Download or read book Liberal Arts Colleges and Liberal Arts Education New Evidence on Impacts written by Ernest T. Pascarella and published by Jossey-Bass. This book was released on 2005-09-14 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long-term impact of liberal arts education Liberal Arts Colleges and Liberal Arts Education: New Evidence on Impacts: ASHE Higher Education Report summarizes the impact of a liberal arts education on college students' intellectual and personal growth. Based on data from a study covering 6,500 students at 40 institutions, these findings reveal the elements of a liberal arts education that best serve students in the long term. As higher education faces increasing pressure to condense and narrow focus, this book provides a cogent argument for keeping the liberal arts education alive.
Download or read book Not for Profit written by Martha C. Nussbaum and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this short and powerful book, celebrated philosopher Martha Nussbaum makes a passionate case for the importance of the liberal arts at all levels of education. Historically, the humanities have been central to education because they have been seen as essential for creating competent democratic citizens. But recently, Nussbaum argues, thinking about the aims of education has gone disturbingly awry in the United States and abroad. We increasingly treat education as though its primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and become knowledgeable, productive, and empathetic individuals. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different, and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world. In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries and the world. In a new preface, Nussbaum explores the current state of humanistic education globally and shows why the crisis of the humanities has far from abated. Translated into over twenty languages, Not for Profit draws on the stories of troubling—and hopeful—global educational developments. Nussbaum offers a manifesto that should be a rallying cry for anyone who cares about the deepest purposes of education.
Download or read book Let s Be Reasonable written by Jonathan Marks and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-31 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A conservative college professor's compelling defense of liberal education Not so long ago, conservative intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. believed universities were worth fighting for. Today, conservatives seem more inclined to burn them down. In Let's Be Reasonable, conservative political theorist and professor Jonathan Marks finds in liberal education an antidote to this despair, arguing that the true purpose of college is to encourage people to be reasonable—and revealing why the health of our democracy is at stake. Drawing on the ideas of John Locke and other thinkers, Marks presents the case for why, now more than ever, conservatives must not give up on higher education. He recognizes that professors and administrators frequently adopt the language and priorities of the left, but he explains why conservative nightmare visions of liberal persecution and indoctrination bear little resemblance to what actually goes on in college classrooms. Marks examines why advocates for liberal education struggle to offer a coherent defense of themselves against their conservative critics, and demonstrates why such a defense must rest on the cultivation of reason and of pride in being reasonable. More than just a campus battlefield guide, Let's Be Reasonable recovers what is truly liberal about liberal education—the ability to reason for oneself and with others—and shows why the liberally educated person considers reason to be more than just a tool for scoring political points.
Download or read book Higher Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution written by Nancy W. Gleason and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-21 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access collection examines how higher education responds to the demands of the automation economy and the fourth industrial revolution. Considering significant trends in how people are learning, coupled with the ways in which different higher education institutions and education stakeholders are implementing adaptations, it looks at new programs and technological advances that are changing how and why we teach and learn. The book addresses trends in liberal arts integration of STEM innovations, the changing role of libraries in the digital age, global trends in youth mobility, and the development of lifelong learning programs. This is coupled with case study assessments of the various ways China, Singapore, South Africa and Costa Rica are preparing their populations for significant shifts in labour market demands – shifts that are already underway. Offering examples of new frameworks in which collaboration between government, industry, and higher education institutions can prevent lagging behind in this fast changing environment, this book is a key read for anyone wanting to understand how the world should respond to the radical technological shifts underway on the frontline of higher education.
Download or read book The Real World of College written by Wendy Fischman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why higher education in the United States has lost its way, and how universities and colleges can focus sharply on their core mission. For The Real World of College, Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner analyzed in-depth interviews with more than 2,000 students, alumni, faculty, administrators, parents, trustees, and others, which were conducted at ten institutions ranging from highly selective liberal arts colleges to less-selective state schools. What they found challenged characterizations in the media: students are not preoccupied by political correctness, free speech, or even the cost of college. They are most concerned about their GPA and their resumes; they see jobs and earning potential as more important than learning. Many say they face mental health challenges, fear that they don’t belong, and feel a deep sense of alienation. Given this daily reality for students, has higher education lost its way? Fischman and Gardner contend that US universities and colleges must focus sharply on their core educational mission. Fischman and Gardner, both recognized authorities on education and learning, argue that higher education in the United States has lost sight of its principal reason for existing: not vocational training, not the provision of campus amenities, but to increase what Fischman and Gardner call “higher education capital”—to help students think well and broadly, express themselves clearly, explore new areas, and be open to possible transformations. Fischman and Gardner offer cogent recommendations for how every college can become a community of learners who are open to change as thinkers, citizens, and human beings.
Download or read book The Fuzzy and the Techie written by Scott Hartley and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2017-04-25 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Artfully explains why it is time for us to get over the false division between the human and the technical.”—Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO and author of Change by Design Scott Hartley first heard the terms fuzzy and techie while studying political science at Stanford University. If you majored in humanities or social sciences, you were a fuzzy. If you majored in computer or hard sciences, you were a techie. While Silicon Valley is generally considered a techie stronghold, the founders of companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Slack, LinkedIn, PayPal, Stitch Fix, Reddit, and others are all fuzzies—in other words, people with backgrounds in the liberal arts. In this brilliantly counterintuitive book, Hartley shatters assumptions about business and education today: learning to code is not enough. The soft skills—curiosity, communication, and collaboration, along with an understanding of psychology and society’s gravest problems—are central to why technology has value. Fuzzies are the instrumental stewards of robots, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. They offer a human touch that is of equal—if not greater—importance in our technology-led world than what most techies can provide. For anyone doubting whether a well-rounded liberal arts education is practical in today’s world, Hartley’s work will come as an inspiring revelation. Finalist for the 2016 Financial Times/McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize and A Financial Times Business Book of the Month
