Liberal Arts Colleges Research Articles

Independence and Interdependence: A Comparative Case Study of Individuals From Two Institutions in Mainland China and Hong Kong

<p style="text-align:justify">There has been a clear shift in higher education to prepare and empower the current students for a future quite different and more complex than that faced by previous generations. In particular, it is expected that they will possess comprehensive abilities to deal with challenges arising from new employment demands and beyond. While liberal arts education has a long history in the West, it has been increasingly implemented more recently in East Asia as one response to the need for educational reform. The research reported here is an empirical study of how liberal arts education has affected individuals from two institutions with distinctive interpretations of “liberal arts education” - University N, the first Sino-foreign joint university in mainland China, and University L, the only public liberal arts university in Hong Kong. Drawing on Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, this study illustrates the interplay and balance among students’ practical concerns, their sense of social obligation fostered through liberal arts education elements and the wider social structure. Semi-structured interviews with senior students, fresh graduates, and educators were conducted to gather in-depth primary data. These reveal that, by providing interdisciplinary knowledge and transferable skill sets, a liberal arts education experience does enhance individuals’ personal agency and intellectual competencies in a professional context - they are trained to become independent thinkers and learners. Moreover, the “humanistic” aspect of liberal arts is also relevant: having engaged in various activities and programs, students in both universities are encouraged to care, cooperate, and make positive differences in their increasingly interconnected communities.</p>

Top-Ranked Higher Education Institutions: An Investigation of the Sport Management Academic Discipline

The current exploratory study determined the prevalence of the sport management academic degree being offered in top-ranked institutions as based on U.S. News & World Report rankings. A focus on the differences of bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees being offered, or not offered, was placed on national universities and liberal arts colleges because of the prevalence of these institution types and their educational settings. Additionally, the study aimed to determine if relevant indicators predicted a sport management degree being offered at a top-ranked national university and liberal arts college. Results indicated significant differences, with sport management degrees being offered at a higher frequency in national universities than liberal arts colleges. However, the sport management degree was largely not offered by the majority of top-ranked institutions. Notably, ranking, enrollment, and public/private institutional status did not predict sport management degree offerings at a liberal arts college. However, a national university had an increased likelihood of offering a sport management degree as enrollment increased and ranking increased (i.e., moved closer to 150). Altogether, the project highlighted that while the sport management academic discipline has certainly grown since its inception, growth has not really occurred at top-ranked higher education institutions, especially liberal arts colleges.

Artificial Intelligence in the CS2023 Undergraduate Computer Science Curriculum: Rationale and Challenges

Roughly every decade, the ACM and IEEE professional organizations have produced recommendations for the education of undergraduate computer science students. These guidelines are used worldwide by research universities, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges. For the latest 2023 revision of the curriculum, AAAI has collaborated with ACM and IEEE to integrate artificial intelligence more broadly into this new curriculum and to address the issues it raises for students, instructors, practitioners, policy makers, and the general public. This paper describes the development process and rationale that underlie the artificial intelligence components of the CS2023 curriculum, discusses the challenges in curriculum design for such a rapidly advancing field, and examines lessons learned during this three-year process.

Merchants of Certainty: Reconsidering Scientific Credibility and Prestige

At the California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, where I teach, the subjects traditionally defined as “science”—physics, chemistry, biology—make their institutional home in the College of Science and Mathematics. The history department, on the other hand, is housed in the College of Liberal Arts, alongside philosophy, English, psychology, and the umbrella “social sciences” of sociology, anthropology, and religious studies, to name a few. Why, one might ask, have these fields been organized this way? What exactly distinguishes science from the liberal arts? Meanwhile, within the College of Science and Mathematics, highly credentialed professors offer courses in astronomy and chemistry, but not astrology and alchemy. Why not? My students might respond that the answers are obvious: alchemy is not real science, of course, and whereas science is objective and empirical, the liberal arts are subjective and interpretive. But where did these distinctions originate? Who determines and maintains them? What, if anything, can the history of these categories tell us about the waxing and waning of scientific authority in the twentieth century?

Research on the Interdependent Relationship between Teaching Methods and Technology : Focusing on the Internal Communication between Instructors and Learners

This study examines that even in an era when technology is essential to education, the essence of liberal arts education lies in the instructor's consideration and internal communication with learners. Technical skills are essential in limited physical and group learning environments, and technology and teaching methods are interdependent. By empirically observing the period of transition from non-face-to-face to face-to-face, we confirmed the interdependence between teaching methods and the university's LMS in H University's liberal arts writing class. Technology functions to sustain and promote the internal relationship between instructor and learner, and internal communication is achieved through the instructor's consideration for the learner. When a sense of trust is formed through the instructor's consideration, learners can focus on writing independently, even in a group learning environment where they do not receive attention. The university's LMS is used for hybrid education where instructors and learners maintain internal communication and communicate using online technology and offline consideration. However, the interdependent relationship with technology in education is meaningful when instructors aim for internal communication through consideration as humanization.

Experience of ‘Sustainable Awareness and Practice’, Study on Global Citizenship Education : Focusing on D University Cases

This paper emphasizes that the foundational direction of global citizenship education is sustainable awareness and practice. It examines the feasibility of this approach, focusing on the case of D University's liberal arts course class. To achieve this objective, key considerations and challenges that need addressing when implementing global citizenship education in university liberal arts programs were highlighted initially. Insights were shared on practical challenges in global citizenship education between countries, issues related to the process and design of learning domains, and the categorization of courses based on subject groups. The outlined outcomes were derived from a project class within the subject group at D University, the sole subject group to offer a global citizenship education course.Firstly, within the realm of global citizenship education, activities in cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral domains are occasionally conducted sequentially; however, it is evident that these three areas can also be concurrently addressed. Secondly, experiences through projects can contribute to the scalability and sustainability of both individuals and regions. Although scalability and sustainability may pose challenges for individuals, fostering solidarity with others and collaborating with various organizations facilitates sustainable awareness and practices in global citizenship education.From this study, we can infer that the potential for scalability and sustainability is heightened through collaborative projects with other students on campus and hands-on experiences can be gained as a member of an external non-governmental organization (NGO). Therefore, the concept of ‘sustainable practice’ encompasses ‘activity,’ ‘sustainability,’ and ‘scalability.’ This paper is meaningful as it presents a direction for global citizenship education in university liberal arts programs.

A Study on Reading Programs in the Convergence Era : Focusing on Book-trailer Activities

This study aims to develop the reading practicum for university students by developing an effective reading program suitable for the convergence era. Reading is a key skill that contributes to developing convergent competencies in university liberal arts education. In particular, ‘Book-trailers’ (video trailers that introduce books) are important in that they produce the results of reading using media.The contents of teaching-learning are as follows. First, once learners know the difference between letter-based text and multimodal text, they can adapt them to the studies. Next, learners experience becoming a book trailer producer and a book trailer consumer. Lastly, the learner knows the respective functions of the book trailer for promotional purposes and as a result after reading.As a result of this program, learners engaged in active reading by understanding book features and contents from a multifaceted perspective and by producing multimodal texts. Furthermore, this program is one of the solutions to solving the problem of learners' declining literacy and reading comprehension skills and can also be expanded into the reading culture industry.

Being big in the big tent: Is fat social justice part of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on college campuses in the United States?

ABSTRACT Fat social justice and fat liberation movements share language, symbols, and strategies with many other movements striving to fight discrimination and stigma, such as movements centered on race, gender, sexuality, and disability. These communities should be natural partners with fat activists in striving for intersectional liberation and in fighting existing structures of privilege. It is less clear, however, the degree to which fat activism and activists are welcome in spaces explicitly constructed to address comprehensive approaches to social justice. To address this question, we examine a setting specifically built to address issues of privilege, oppression, and discrimination: diversity, equity, and inclusion organizations at US colleges and universities. We compile a data set of diversity, equity, and inclusion offices at 200 four-year colleges and universities in the US, with stratified samples to ensure inclusion across regions of the US, a broad variety of educational settings from large Research 1 institutions to small liberal arts colleges, and a subset of historically black colleges and universities. We examine whether and to what degree issues of fat social justice and liberation are included in university diversity and inclusion offices, websites, and materials. Findings show fat people, their experiences, and fat social justice issues are generally excluded in DEI spaces. We provide potential explanations for this exclusion and outline possible steps forward for those interested in fat social justice.

대학 교양수업 교수자의 의사소통 유형이 학습자의 수업 태도 및 학교적응에 미치는 영향

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of communication styles of university liberal arts instructors on learners' class attitudes and school adjustment. The purpose of this study is to provide practical basic data for college students, who are adult learners, to improve their class attitude and school adjustment. In addition, it is necessary to analyze the appropriateness and effectiveness of college classes to understand the needs of learners (college students), who are education consumers, and apply them to the class scene. The subjects of this study were 4-year private university students in Gyeonggi-do, and a self-administration method was used. The results of this study are as follows: First, among the sub-factors of communication type of university liberal arts class instructors, trust type, professional type, and cooperative type had a significant effect on learner's class attitude, but control type did not have a significant effect on this study. Second, all four sub-factors of communication types of university liberal arts class instructors showed statistically significant meanings in school adjustment. The results of this study will provide implications for the importance of teacher communication in the field of university liberal arts education, learner - centered education, and maximization of school adaptation.

A union's and university's responses to violence against a woman professor: Neoliberal restructuring, hypermasculinity, male privilege and hegemonic inequality

AbstractAlthough Eastern Canadian liberal arts universities are portrayed as progressive work environments that cultivate inclusivity and diversity, the corporatisation of these public spaces has transformed them from institutions that once encouraged pluralism and acceptance among all social groups to spaces that unevenly distribute privileges among faculty and students based on ascribed characteristics, social class, and adherence to cisnormative and heteronormative expectations. Under neoliberal reforms, universities and unions adopt their own policies and procedures that legitimate institutional power abuse over marginalised women Contract Limited Term (CLT) assistant professors. Using material evidence from complaints filed with a province's Human Rights Commission and Labour Board, this critical autoethnographic case study explores the institutionalised responses to a disenfranchised woman CLT's discrimination and harassment by a student, departmental chair, faculty and university staff. A theory of genocidal mobbing is developed to conceptualise the organisational processes and practices that maintain the status quo of white heteropatriarchy and disentitle women CLTs to safety, equality and fair representation by their unions. Genocidal mobbing is efficient, because misogynistic administrators only require weaponising one disgruntled student, and effective, because administrators utilise the most fatal and insidious of gendered narcissistic abuse: gaslighting. The current neoliberal climate within academia puts marginalised women faculty at increased risk of genocidal mobbing from those with institutional power and from students with ethnic/racial and/or economic privilege. This article illuminates the union's culpability in the genocidal mobbing of women CLTs disenfranchised by multiple marginalised intersectional identities. Implications for future research and on policy are presented.

Interdisciplinary studies on the evolution of senior high school English education in postwar Taiwan and the relevance to Japan's system

In recent years in Japan, there has been an urgent need to develop logical, critical thinking, and communication skills in Japanese English education. While there has long been considerable research on Japan’s English language education system and that of other East Asian nations, there has been less information available on the English education system in Taiwan. Despite similarities between the English education systems in Japan and Taiwan, there is less data on the Taiwanese system, which makes it difficult to draw comparisons between the two. This is the research focus of Professor Seiko Hirai, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Kitasato University, Japan. Hirai is interested in English education, with a particular focus on Taiwan, and her research also explores cognitive perspectives of bilingualism. Hirai has been investigating the English education situation in Taiwan, with a focus on Taiwanese English textbooks. Hirai’s findings indicate that, as demonstrated by the Taiwanese English education situation, it is possible to develop communicative skills in tandem with critical thinking skills and that these are not mutually exclusive. Her studies also suggest that literature materials used in Taiwanese English textbooks are useful for developing these skills, and for deepening the level and type of intellectual exposure to English in its many forms. There is some consensus in the literature that acquiring reading and writing abilities in one language helps with the acquisition of reading and writing abilities in other languages and that this could possibly also improve higher thinking processes. Hiraiâ–™s research on the cognitive perspectives of bilingualism is ongoing but she is eager to promote the improvement of communicative-based language development learning in Japanese school environments. She intends to collaborate with other researchers to explore how to improve Japanese English textbooks by using knowledge gained from her research on the Taiwanese system as well as research on other East Asian nations.

The Pact: How a Seemingly Race-Neutral Behavioral Policy Reproduced Racial Inequality at a Predominantly White Liberal Arts College

How do seemingly nonracial organizational processes reproduce racial inequality? This study examines how “the Pact,” an ostensibly race-neutral COVID-19 behavioral policy implemented at a predominantly White U.S. liberal arts college, undermined social connection and belonging among students of color. Analyzing three waves of interviews with 30 undergraduates (N = 75 interviews), we document disparities in four domains of campus life: (1) social isolation in residence halls, (2) access to “safe” forms of rule breaking, (3) visibility and surveillance, and (4) stakes of violation. We identify three underlying mechanisms—unequal resource allocation, uneven rule enforcement, and color-blind decision-making—and demonstrate how distinct institutional conditions facilitated these processes. This analysis advances theoretical understandings of racialized organizational processes in higher education by connecting previously theorized mechanisms to specific university characteristics and practices.

The Challenges Faced by AI Education in China's Liberal Arts Universities

The Challenges Faced by AI Education in China's Liberal Arts Universities

“Students’ Preparedness on the Implementation of Flipped Teaching Approach in Davao Central College”

This study focused on the level of preparedness of Davao Central College students on the implementation of the flipped teaching approach among the selected college students coming from different departmental affiliation who are currently enrolled for the second semester of the school year 2022-2023. The study employed descriptive-regression quantitative method in research to describe and differentiate the Students’ Preparedness in Davao Central College towards Flipped teaching approach. The study revealed that students are highly prepared on the implementation of the flipped teaching approach in terms of teaching methods, assessment practices, and the utilization of instructional materials. However, in terms of departmental affiliation, only the College of Education and Liberal Arts has a significant difference among the indicators. Furthermore, the study found that students’ preparedness plays a significant role in achieving a successful teaching and learning environment. Thus, the study recommended that Davao Central College should be ready to implement the flipped teaching approach during emergencies that may put students’ lives at risk especially to those departments that are prepared on this approach. Instructors should focus on producing clear and engaging instructional materials and enhance their skills through training or professional development. They should tailor their teaching methods and assessment practices to suit the differences in student preparedness across different departments. Overall, the study provides a baseline for future research on flipped teaching in higher education institutions in the Philippines.

Exploration and Practice of Modular Teaching for Liberal Arts Colleges in University Information Technology Courses

Exploration and Practice of Modular Teaching for Liberal Arts Colleges in University Information Technology Courses

Establishing a Research-Focused Liberal Arts College in China: Duke Kunshan University

Establishing a Research-Focused Liberal Arts College in China: Duke Kunshan University

한국어수업에서 하이브리드 수업 모형 제안 연구

In the post-COVID-19 era, hybrid learning has become the order of the day for universities as well, wherein online classes are combined with face-to-face classes in university education. This study proposes an educational method using a hybrid model in the university liberal arts Korean classes for foreign students. The pros and cons of purely online education and hybrid education were first examined, followed by an analysis of the current status of hybrid courses and programs in foreign countries. Based on the analysis, a plan was proposed for application in the university liberal arts Korean language classes. Specifically, a step-by-step teaching/ learning situation was devised by applying the hybrid model to the listening skills class, where foreign students learn Korean. After conducting the class by applying the hybrid model, a questionnaire survey on learners showed that class satisfaction and academic achievement were high. The proposed method of hybrid learning can therefore enable academic Korean learners to achieve more effective learning and satisfaction in Korean language classes.

Navigating the Direction of Christian Literacy Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

In an era where materialism is refined in various ways, what does it mean for theism to live with this era? Rather, as progress in understanding materials coincides with technological prosperity through materials, material-centered worldviews such as posthumanism and new materialism are increasing in breadth and depth. However, when this question is transposed into the space of university liberal arts education, the question changes as follows: Can the teachings of Christianity still be relevant in the era of artificial intelligence? This essay attempts to explore an answer to this question. Three reflective approaches are needed for this attempt. First, reflection on where the teachings of Christianity are positioned within university education. Second, reflection on the era of techno-capitalism, represented by artificial intelligence. Third, reflection on Christian teachings for university liberal arts education, considering both the Christianity’s position within the era and the characteristics of the era of artificial intelligence. The conclusions for each reflection will suggest Christian literacy, challenges posed by artificial intelligence, and the necessity of Christian teachings in university liberal arts education through the reinterpretation of spirituality. The proposed argument is that in terms of position, it is Christian literacy rather than Christian missions; in understanding the contemporary situation, it is the two challenges posed by artificial intelligence to humanity; and in facing these challenges, the direction of education should be spiritual education through the reinterpretation of spirituality. The goal of this essay is to present the actuality of this reinterpretation through the methodological concept of transversal traversing. By doing so, it aims to imagine one theoretical alternative on how Christian literacy in the era of artificial intelligence can be applied in the field of university liberal arts education.

Development of University General Education Classes using Microlearning and Analysis of Class Satisfaction

The purpose of this study is to present the development and operation of liberal arts classes using microlearning content and to analyze class satisfaction to examine the necessity and applicability of microlearning classes in university liberal arts education. Developed by reflecting microlearning characteristics, tClass is a one-credit class designed to be available in a nonlinear manner for five weeks. After this course, a satisfaction survey of all remote classes and tClass students was conducted to find out the level of satisfaction of learners and focus group interviews were additionally conducted with four applicants. As a result of the study, both timeliness and accessibility were high due to the nature of remote classes, and tClass showed a high level of satisfaction among the students, especially when it came to the learning materials and the accessibility of the items. On the other hand, poor concentration, boredom, and a lack of willingness to learn were found to be obstacles for remote classes. Based on the above research results, the suggestions are as follows. 1) In order to better implement the characteristics of microlearning, sufficient prior coordination is needed to determine whether or not we should change the academic system. 2) In order to develop microlearning, it is important to set an appropriate lecture topic and a suitable level of class difficulty. 3) There is a need to design learning activities that can help students take a leading role regarding their own learning and inspection. 4) In order to improve learners' concentration and understanding, video production methods need to be diversified and their level of completion needs to be increased. It is hoped that the results of this study will be used as basic data to develop microlearning classes in universities and to enhance learning effects.

How traditional undergraduate college students define and perceive wellness: A qualitative phenomenological study

Objective To understand college students’ perceptions and understanding of wellness. Participants A convenience sample of 20 undergraduate students (age 20.6 ± 2.2 years) at a private liberal arts university in Southern California who recently completed a general education health and wellness course. Method Five focus group sessions were conducted to explore perceptions of wellness among undergraduate college students. Data was analyzed, themed, and coded. Results A thematic analysis of the descriptions of wellness revealed 2 higher-ordered themes as whole-person and wellbeing, and 3 lower-ordered themes of balance, interconnectedness, and personalized in relation to participants’ understanding of wellness. Conclusions The importance of balance between wellness dimensions and the acknowledgment of the interconnectedness of wellness dimensions are related to quality of life and life satisfaction. A deeper insight is needed to better understand the perceptions of wellness in this population to provide more effective interventions. This can be achieved through the development of enhanced pedagogy, which may improve student health.