Liberal Education, Spring 2005

Current Issue

Spring2005Vol.91No.2

2005 Annual Meeting, Liberal Education and the New Academy

This issue represents the theme of AAC&U's 2005 annual meeting, "Liberal Education and the New Academy." Included are selected papers presented at the meeting. Additional essays explore the challenge of religion in the liberal education of world citizens, the civic promise of service learning, and the defense of liberal education.

Table of Contents
President's Message

Celebrating Ninety Years of Leadership for Liberal Education

By Paula P. Brownlee

From 1818 R Street NW

From the Editor

By David Tritelli

Featured Topic

Making Excellence Inclusive: Liberal Education & America's Promise

By Carol Geary Schneider
AAC&U’s ninetieth anniversary offers an opportunity for reflection. Where are we now in our shared commitment to the values and practices of liberal education, and where do we need to go, within the academy as a whole and within the association itself?

Pedagogies of Uncertainty

By Lee S. Shulman
Professional education poses compelling pedagogical challenges that can and should inform all sectors of education, including undergraduate liberal education. It is about developing pedagogies to link ideas, practices, and values under conditions of inherent uncertainty that necessitate not only judgment in order to act, but also cognizance of the consequences of action.

The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, & Transforming Democracy

By Lani Guinier
Miners used canaries as early warning signals: when a canary gasped for breath, the miners knew there was a problem with the atmosphere in the mine. The experience of people of color in higher education can be used similarly as a diagnostic tool.

Liberal Education and America's Promise

Liberal Education for the Twenty-first Century: Business Expectations

By Roberts T. Jones
A liberal education is the foundation for success in every growing occupation. Employers do not want, and have not advocated for, students prepared for narrow workforce specialties. But is the traditional framework of liberal education calibrated to the demands of the changing world?

Perspectives

1968--The Annual Meeting

By Max S. Marshall
The deliberate gatherings that best display man's eccentricities are the annual meetings of professional, usually also professorial, groups.

A Profound Unknowing: The Challenge of Religion in the Liberal Education of World Citizens

By Natalie Gummer
Discussions of world citizenship that elide the challenge of grappling with religious worldviews expose a covert intolerance at the very core of secularism, calling into question the “liberality” of liberal education. The ethical imperative of engaging with different worldviews not only demands that religions be taught, but also raises questions regarding how religious worldviews should be taught.

The Civic Promise of Service Learning

By John Saltmarsh
Service learning has moved into the mainstream of American higher education as an effective pedagogical approach to improving the teaching and learning of course content, but it has not sufficiently addressed the civic dimensions of the disciplines. The next phase of service learning’s development must focus on the achievement of civic learning outcomes.

My View

Why Are Liberal Education's Friends of So Little Help?

By Marshall Gregory
Liberal education needs fewer friends who are merely well meaning and more friends who train themselves to fight for liberal education’s distinctive goals—not to mention its very survival—the way they train themselves to be smart, savvy, and successful in their disciplines.

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