Distinctively American: The Residential Liberal Arts Colleges

by Graubard,Stephen R.

• ISBN13: 9780765807212
• ISBN10: 0765807211
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2000-02-29
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

There is much change underway in American higher education. New technologies are challenging the teaching practices of yesterday, distance learning is lauded, and private firms offer to certify the educational credentials that businesses and others will deem satisfactory. In this new environment, America's liberal arts colleges propound a quite different set of values. Their continuing faith in the liberal arts -- not as the nineteenth century chose to define them but as the twenty-first century will be obliged to reconsider them -- is being tested.Distinctively American examines the American liberal arts college as an institution, from its role in the lives of students, to its value as a form of education. It explores the threats faced by liberal arts colleges as well as the transformative role, both positive and negative, information technology will play in their future development and survival. In the preface introducing the volume, Stephen Graubard examines the history of the American liberal arts colleges, from their early disdained reputations in comparison to European schools, to their slow rise to becoming "world-class universities".This important volume explores the triumphs and challenges of one segment of the American higher educational universe. It also addresses a larger question: What ought this country be teaching its young, the many millions who now throng its colleges and universities? Distinctively American is essential reading for all concerned with the future of higher education.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Foreword	xv
Steven Koblik
The Making of the Liberal Arts College Identity	1	(26)
Hugh Hawkins
The Threats to Liberal Arts Colleges	27	(20)
Paul Neely
The Future Economic Challeges for the Liberal Arts Colleges	47	(30)
Michael S. McPherson
Morton Owen Schapiro
How the Liberal Arts College Affects Students	77	(24)
Alexander W. Astin
Affirmation and Adaptation: Values and the Elite Residential College	101	(20)
Peter J. Gomes
The Currents of Democracy: The Role of Small Liberal Arts Colleges	121	(12)
Geoffrey Canada
Distinctively American: The Liberal Arts College	133	(18)
Eugene M. Lang
The American College as the Place for Liberal Learning	151	(22)
Eva T. H. Brann
Generating Ideals and Transforming Lives: A Contemporary Case for the Residential Liberal Arts College	173	(22)
Richard H. Hersh
Science at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Better Education?	195	(22)
Thomas R. Cech
New Approaches to Science and Mathematics Teaching at Liberal Arts Colleges	217	(24)
Priscilla W. Laws
``Vortex, Clouds, and Tongue'': New Problems in the Humanities?	241	(24)
Christina Elliott Sorum
Reassessing Research: Liberal Arts Colleges and the Social Sciences	265	(8)
Susan C. Bourque
At Home in Our World: The Place of International Studies in Liberal Arts Colleges	273	(20)
Peter W. Stanley
Stability and Transformation: Information Technology in Liberal Arts Colleges	293
Diane P. Balestri