The Liberal Arts in Higher Education Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Possibilities

by Glyer, Diana; Weeks, David L.; Beebe, Gayle; Christopherson, Richard; Culp, John; Flannery, Christopher; Hedges, James; Liegler, Rosemary; Lulofs, Roxane; Miyahara, David; Newstad, Rae Wineland; Palm, Daniel C.; Rossi, Maximo; Royse, Dennis O.; Sheridan,

• ISBN13: 9780761811640
• ISBN10: 0761811648
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-07-30
• Publisher: UPA

Summary

The Liberal Arts in Higher Education launches an institutional effort to establish a shared definition and to clarify the contours of the liberal arts and liberal education by extending centuries-old dialogue to the coeducational, Christian campus of Azusa Pacific University. The book contains 'working' definitions of key terms, including: liberal arts, liberal education, trivium, quadrivium, liberalism, and general education and a cursory review of five paradigms of liberal education. It also presents a description of five perennial debates regarding liberal education: the relationship between moral and intellectual virtue, the disciplinary divide between the sciences and the humanities, the connection between professional and liberal education, and the postmodern challenge to traditional understandings of liberal education. Four original articles explore the scope and nature of liberal education, while ten critical reviews discuss some of the most quoted literature on the topic. These essays provide a philosophical assessment of the past and present nature of liberal education along with suggestions for how a Christian liberal education may be reimagined.

Table of Contents

Foreword	v
Richard E. Felix
Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction
Liberal Education: Initiating the Conversation	ix
Diana Glyer
David L. Weeks
Part One: The Articles
The Classical liberal Arts Tradition	3	(22)
Christopher Flannery
Rae Wineland Newstad
Modern and Postmodern Challenges to Liberal Education	25	(22)
Dennis A. Sheridan
Integrating Liberal Arts and Professional Education	47	(14)
Phillip V. Lewis
Rosemary Liegler
Re-imagining a Distinctly Christian Liberal Arts Education	61	(24)
Richard Slimbach
Part Two: The Reviews
John Henry Newman's The idea of a University	85	(6)
Daniel C. Palm
Robert M. Hutchin's The Higher Learning in America	91	(6)
John Culp
The Harvard Committee's General Education in a Free Society and The College of the University of Chicago's The Idea and Practice of General Education	97	(8)
Richard Christopherson
David Miyahara
David Wagner's The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages	105	(6)
Dennis O. Royse
Ernest L. Boyer and Arthur Levine's A Quest for Common Learning: The Aims of General Education	111	(6)
Cahleen M. Shrier
Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind	117	(6)
Gayle Beebe
Gary E. Miller's The Meaning of General Education	123	(4)
Roger White
Jerry G. Gaff's New Life for the College Curriculum	127	(4)
Maximo Rossi
Charles Anderson's Prescribing the Life of the Mind	131	(4)
Roxane Lulofs
Bruce Kimball's Orators and Philosophers and Robert Orrill's The Condition of American Liberal Education	135	(10)
James Hedges
Bibliography	145	(12)
Index	157