Liberal Arts Model Research Articles

Exploring Improvement Possibility of Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education Inspired by European Liberal Arts and Science Model

Exploring Improvement Possibility of Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education Inspired by European Liberal Arts and Science Model

Exploring Improvement Possibility of Undergraduate Liberal Arts Education Inspired by European Liberal Arts and Science Model

In order to improve liberal arts education in Korean universities, it is necessary to analyze the characteristics of European Liberal Arts & Science [LAS] programs. This is because LAS in Europe reflects the orientation of modern liberal arts education such as universal, academic, and contemporary property, and can supplement the limitations of the Korean liberal arts curriculum, which is heavily influenced by sub-disciplines. The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of the European University College [UC]s’ Liberal Arts & Science model for undergraduate liberal arts education in Korean universities. To this end, text data of three European UCs and Amsterdam UC [AUC] were collected, preprocessed, and then analyzed using techniques such as frequency analysis, topic modeling, and a semantic network. By comparing the results of the frequency analysis, 14 common keywords were extracted and classified into universal (<i>social, human, public, development</i>), academic (<i>research, science, knowledge, skills, analysis</i>), and contemporary (<i>international, global, contemporary, data, economic</i>) orientation. In the structure of the semantic network, some keywords were assigned in several topics. As a result of analyzing 5 keywords of 8 topics in the course titled Data of AUC LAS, 18 of 226 courses included an Introduction. 11 of them are introductory courses of convergence and 7 are theme-oriented courses, which is different from the cases in Korea, which are mostly focused on introductory courses in sub-disciplines. Based on the analysis of texts of AUC LAS, this paper proposes three things: the introduction of a coordinator system and convergence courses, the strengthening of the role of advisors, and the development of teaching-learning methods. The results of these discussions based on text data analysis can be used to improve the standards of liberal arts education in Korea or to reorganize liberal arts education at each university. They can also be used as a reference when developing and managing educational programs such as in institutions dedicated to liberal arts education, university colleges, and departments for self-designing curriculum at Korean universities.

Building a Liberal Arts Tradition in India

Postcolonial nations often struggle with the legacy of higher education systems built by and for the benefit of former colonizers. In India, several visionaries have endeavored to design new approaches to higher education that are suitable to India’s unique context while taking inspiration from the US liberal arts college model. Interest in the liberal arts has grown - in an interconnected world, where a broader scope of understanding is required to craft solutions to societal challenges, young Indians are seeking an alternative to the specialized university model that has dominated the Indian higher education landscape since colonial times. This paper explores the practice of the liberal arts in India through three questions: How does the liberal arts approach fit within the Indian context? How have Indian universities built their own liberal arts tradition? What tensions do these universities navigate? I collected data through a document analysis and interviews with founders, faculty, students, and alumni at three new liberal arts universities in India. While communicating the practical value of the liberal arts to a largely unfamiliar population, the universities built their own liberal arts tradition to help students appreciate, analyze, and develop a commitment to improving the Indian context. At the same time, universities faced numerous tensions: responding to pressures to produce highly employable graduates while remaining true to their institutional ideals, balancing wisdom from both the western liberal arts model and indigenous Indian traditions, and fostering greater inclusion while maintaining financial sustainability. The study’s findings contribute to the field of higher education in India and other postcolonial countries seeking to create new culturally relevant education traditions.

Community-based climate action planning as an act of advocacy: a case study of liberal arts education in a rural community

The current lack of comprehensive federal climate policy highlights the critical need for effective subnational climate policy and programs. We describe our efforts to create and cultivate a community-based multi-stakeholder group centered around local climate change planning and advocacy in a small, rural New York municipality. The literature on sustainability planning emphasizes the importance of collaborative work to build new capacities, develop knowledge, and create community commitment over the long term to advocate for municipal policies that prioritize climate change mitigation and resilience. However, case studies of rural community contexts are lacking in the literature, and rural communities may not have the planning and other resources found in the municipal offices of larger, urban communities. We argue that higher education institutions, especially those situated in small rural communities, have a vital role in supporting the climate strategies of local actors and can develop productive partnerships through research and co-curricular education. We discuss several challenges to effective campus-community partnerships, including the need to balance student engagement in community-based research with the traditional liberal arts model of education, engaging and sustaining the participation of community partners, and differential access to resources in rural spaces.

Desequencing the Music Theory Core: A Liberal Arts Model

The undergraduate music curriculum has been the subject of ongoing discussion with regards to technology, repertoire, pedagogy, and purpose. This article contributes to this continuing conversation by presenting a case study of a restructured music theory sequence at a small liberal arts college. Part of the liberal arts mission at the College of Idaho includes a commitment to interdisciplinary ways of knowing, effective written communication skills, and information literacy. The curriculum proposed in this article reflects the liberal arts identity of the instition and some of the practical realities faced by smaller programs. Although specific to the needs of the institution, this model provides one path forward to a more efficient and flexible core theory curriculum.

Athens of the New South: College Life and the Making of Modern Nashville by Mary Ellen Pethel

Reviewed by: Athens of the New South: College Life and the Making of Modern Nashville by Mary Ellen Pethel Michael David Cohen (bio) Athens of the New South: College Life and the Making of Modern Nashville. By Mary Ellen Pethel. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2017. Pp. xiii, 340. $60.00 cloth; $39.95 paper; $60.00 ebook) The postbellum South underwent both educational growth and urban modernization. In Athens of the New South, Mary Ellen Pethel argues that these went hand in hand. Southerners used higher education to enact their "own version of modernity," one that accommodated their regional identity and history (p. 3). Colleges, conversely, shaped the economic and cultural growth of cities. Following nine educational institutions in Nashville between 1865 and 1930, Pethel contends that higher education "was what marked cities like Nashville as 'progressive' and 'New South'" (p. 31). Nashvillians believed higher education was central to their city's success. Marketing it as "the ideal New South urban center," business leaders donated to local colleges, joined boards of trust, and enrolled their children (p. 53). White alumni became professionals who shaped the twentieth-century city. Black alumni became teachers, doctors, and nurses who helped Tennessee's black communities to survive Jim Crow. [End Page 618] Education, Pethel shows, literally shaped the urban landscape. After four colleges for whites opened in Nashville's western section, commercial development and residential preferences followed. African Americans, forbidden to purchase property in much of the west, formed their own commercial district and elite residential area in the north alongside three black colleges. Other parts of the north and east became low-income and immigrant enclaves. Race and gender fundamentally shaped Southern education. Blacks studied in separate colleges because the whites excluded them. In Nashville, these followed both Booker T. Washington's teacher-training model, as at Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial School, and W. E. B. Du Bois's liberal arts model, as at Fisk University. Colleges that admitted women, either alone or alongside men, retained some commitment to antebellum feminine roles—they offered gendered curricula that taught women home economics, teaching, and nursing. Alumnae performed volunteer community work or entered feminized professions. New leisure activities empowered students to shape and enjoy the modern city. Fraternities and sororities existed largely off campus. Students patronized Nashville's theaters, parks, skating rink, and racetrack. African Americans, unwelcome at white facilities, participated in "a segregated system of leisure" that included black-designated Hadley Park and women's organizations dedicated to community service (p. 185). Sports, especially those played by white men, transformed both higher education and Southern culture. Athleticism came to define Southern manhood, and devotion to teams, especially football after 1890, which "in some part, replaced [Southerners'] allegiance to the Confederacy" (p. 197). Vanderbilt's excellent football record became a source of regional pride and made Nashville "a prime representative of southern-style progressivism" (p. 196). Pethel deftly applies the work of scholars such as Amy McCandless, on women's higher education, and Andrew Doyle, on college football, to her case study of Nashville. (She excessively quotes [End Page 619] secondary sources, though, where citations would suffice.) Blending their analyses with a wide primary source base centered around the colleges' publications and archives, she convincingly shows that Nashville became a modern city largely because of and defined by its colleges. Writing as most of them celebrate or approach their sesquicentennials, she balances a bit of celebration—including a final chapter on growth after 1930—with a lot of scholarship. Historians of Nashville must read this book, and many residents will want to as well. Historians of higher education should too; it stands out in that field for its recognition of the campuses and the city as a continuous and connected space. A few passing references would benefit from explanations. Pethel mentions that married men and working teachers attended colleges, but does not explore the impact of age on their experiences. Her exclusion of Johns Hopkins from institutions "in the Southeast" and her inclusion of Tennessee in "the Deep South" leave me curious how she defines those regions (pp. 16, 41). These, however, detract very little from her engaging account of modern Nashville's birth...

A comparative study of the liberal arts tradition and Confucian tradition in education

In contrast to the continued decline and bleak future of liberal arts education and liberal arts colleges in Europe and America, there has been a revival of the liberal arts model in Asian countries in recent years. This paper compares the liberal arts tradition of education in the West and Confucian tradition of education in the East, in the aspects of educational goal, curriculum, and pedagogy, as well as the way both traditions are institutionalized. It makes connections between these humanistic approaches to demonstrate the common ground for the education of mankind: human beings need to develop meaning for life and to be able to relate to others in order to have a fulfilling life, and highlights the importance of such humanistic approaches as liberal arts education and the Confucian tradition in an increasingly utilitarian and vocation-oriented world.

Evaluating the liberal arts model in the context of the Dutch University College

The Liberal Arts model of undergraduate education within small, internationally-focused University Colleges is becoming increasingly popular in Europe. This trend is most notable in the Netherlands, where the liberal arts model is acclaimed as filling a gap in Dutch undergraduate education at conventional research universities. This paper explores the status of the Dutch University College as simultaneously continuing the liberal arts tradition of the US, with its civic and pedagogic values, and providing a truly modern education preparing students to find innovative and inter-disciplinary solutions to the complex problems which define contemporary society. It concludes that the traditional role of a liberal arts education in cultivating intellectual rather than vocation skills does not have to exclude its appeal as providing the skills necessary for professional success in global sectors of the 21 st century knowledge economy.

Teaching writing as public work: John Macmillan Brown and ‘practical’ composition

John Macmillan Brown, Professor of Classics and English at Canterbury College, was one of the first teachers of writing in a New Zealand university. Here I examine how his composition pedagogy offers a relationship between English instruction, academic success, and professional and public life, which remains relevant and provocative today. I suggest that the move away from Macmillan Brown’s pedagogy can be located in a history of student writing in the New Zealand university and its increasing marginalisation, as a result of limited teaching resources and the challenge of instituting a liberal arts model for university education. Acknowledging the complexity of Macmillan Brown’s ‘practical’ pedagogical project, I also suggest that attention to such teaching might put pressure on histories of the university that prioritise the development of research capacity, and can serve to denaturalise and explain some of our present-day assumptions about the teaching of writing and literacy in the university

Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities by Martha C. Nussbaum (review)

Reviewed by: Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities by Martha C. Nussbaum Jeffrey R. Di Leo Martha C. Nussbaum , Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010, xv + 158 pp. Democratic education is under siege and could very well vanish from the American educational system. "Thirsty for national profit, nations, and their systems of education," writes Martha Nussbaum, "are heedlessly discarding skills that are needed to keep democracies alive" (2). "If this trend continues, nations all over the world will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the significance of another person's sufferings and achievements," continues Nussbaum. "The future of the world's democracies hangs in the balance" (2). Not for Profit presents a passionate case for systems of education that result in "a more inclusive type of citizenship" (7)—rather than ones solely focused on profit-making. For Nussbaum, the humanities and the arts are the place where students acquire the "skills" necessary to keep democracies alive and become complete citizens—rather than "useful machines." If we continue to "ask our schools to turn out useful profit-makers rather than thoughtful citizens" (141-42), our world will become [End Page 326] one comprised of "technically trained people who do not know how to criticize authority, useful profit-makers with obtuse imaginations" (142). According to Nussbaum, "greedy obtuseness" and "technically trained docility" "threaten the very life of democracy itself " and "impede the creation of a decent world culture" (142). From a wide angle, Nussbaum presents a compelling case for the importance of the humanities to the development of democratic culture. Critical thinking and reflection provide citizens with the capacity to see beyond local problems and loyalties and "imagine sympathetically the predicament of another person" (7). Thoughtful imagination enriches our relationships with others and "makes us human" (6). However, the single-minded quest for economic growth and financial profit tends to abandon these democratic values, particularly in times of severe economic crisis. As a result, democratic education gives way to education for profit in times of financial crisis. "Distracted by the pursuit of wealth," comments Nussbaum, "we increasingly ask our schools to turn out useful profit-makers rather than thoughtful citizens" (141-42). Economic strains only exacerbate this situation and put pressure on institutions to abandon the liberal arts model of university education. This model, which flourishes in the United States and is unlike that of just about every other nation in the world, gives students the freedom to study a wide range of courses during the first two years of their university education. Rather than focusing on studying a single subject, students educated in the liberal arts model of education take an array of courses spanning the arts and sciences. The liberal arts model challenges "the mind to become active, competent, and thoughtfully critical in a complex world" (18) rather than encouraging students to passively assimilate "facts and cultural traditions." The result is a model of education that produces "informed, independent, and sympathetic democratic citizens" (18). To this point, Nussbaum's argument for the importance of the humanities to democratic citizenship is relatively uncontroversial. Nussbaum draws heavily on the educational philosophies of John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore to make her case, and in the process demonstrates many of the similarities between their positions. For admirers of Dewey's educational philosophy unfamiliar with the work of Tagore, her comparisons will be interesting. In addition, comparing highly-influential Indian and American educational philosophies in support of liberal arts education gives her general argument a more global feel, and makes her sub-arguments such as those against educational practices that merely "teach to the test" and those that advocate passive memorization (over active learning) even more compelling. Nonetheless, Nussbaum's case against education for profit somehow still takes a wrong turn. Instead of simply arguing that active learning in the humanities is necessary to democratic education, Nussbaum also adds that it leads to economic growth—and [End Page 327] financial profit. A "flourishing economy," writes Nussbaum, "requires the same skills that support citizenship" (10). In her opinion, those who believe that passive...

Mitigating the Protective-Services Orientation in Criminal Justice: An Opening Salvo at the University of Winnipeg

This article traces the development of a criminal justice (CJ) program at the University of Winnipeg and places that development in the context of the growth of criminology and criminal justice fields in Canada. The CJ program at the University of Winnipeg began as a distributed and interdisciplinary major, but through a process of self-reflection and discovery, CJ faculty attempted to build a program that was theoretically oriented while not losing sight of its applied roots. The journey can best be described as a mitigation of the protective-services orientation – a somewhat pejorative description of CJ levelled by critical scholars of crime, law, and society. We situate the development of a CJ program at the University of Winnipeg alongside shifts in the traditional liberal arts model of post-secondary education in Canada and reflect upon some of the emerging challenges that face similar departments in the current socio-economic and political climate. The article attempts to open up debate and dialogue about the nature of CJ education in Canada and offers the University of Winnipeg as a case study of the development of the discipline in Canada in a post-secondary context.

The Origins of Christian Liberal Arts Higher Education in Russia: A Case Study of the Russian-American Christian University

This is a case study of the historical development of a private Christian faith-based school of higher education in post-Soviet Russia from its conception in 1990 until 2010. This binational school was founded as Russian-American Christian University (RACU) in 1996. In 2003, business and economics as well as social work undergraduate academic programs were accredited by the Russian Ministry of Education. In 2008, RACU added English language and literature to the list of its state-accredited undergraduate academic programs. The academic model of RACU was designed according to the traditional American Christian liberal arts model and adapted to the Russian higher education system.

The Emergence of Liberal Arts and Sciences Education in Europe: A Comparative Perspective

This article explores the question of why liberal arts and sciences education has been (re-)emerging in Europe over roughly the last two decades. A period, which is also characterized by the Bologna Process, that is the introduction of distinct undergraduate — graduate degree cycles, and the explicit framing of higher education policies within the concept of the knowledge economy (the Lisbon Strategy). It will do so by taking a historical and comparative approach, looking at the histories of liberal arts and sciences education as they evolved in Europe and the USA. The article aims to analyse why liberal arts and science education seems to be a relevant response to the needs for higher education reform in Europe. In particular to the need to differentiate the massified European systems, in terms of broader and more flexible approaches to bachelor education in order to overcome the disadvantages of too early and over-specialization, by re-establishing the balance between breadth and depth of the curriculum, and in terms of redefining elite education in overly egalitarian systems. The focus on Europe will highlight developments in the Netherlands, where the progress of liberal arts and sciences education is particularly substantial and where the model has already obtained a special status within the higher education system. This will be further illustrated using Amsterdam University College as an institutional case study on the new European version of the liberal arts model, with an emphasis on its meaning in the globalized higher education context of the 21st century.

Ideologies of civic participation in Central Asia: liberal arts in the post-Soviet democratic ethos

Higher educational practices in post-Soviet Central Asia remain predicated on an authoritarian conception of expertise rooted in an objective and universal science. While the substance of such education has changed since the Soviet era, the form of education remains rooted in Soviet-era discursive ideological practices, practices that encourage civic passivity outside the classroom. The liberal arts model of higher education represents a significant challenge to prevailing education norms, but it is a model that is honoured more in name than in implementation by domestic and international reformers. The inability to articulate the broader societal significance of the liberal arts suggests a broader act of forgetting the civic inspiration of liberal education in established as well as developing democracies.

<em>Typhoid in Uppingham: Analysis of a Victorian Town and School in Crisis, 1875-77</em>, by Nigel Richardson

Reviewed by: Typhoid in Uppingham: Analysis of a Victorian Town and School in Crisis, 1875–77 Michael Worboys (bio) Typhoid in Uppingham: Analysis of a Victorian Town and School in Crisis, 1875–77, by Nigel Richardson; pp. xix + 268. London and Brookfield: Pickering & Chatto, 2008, £60.00, $99.00. In the early months of 2010, British newspapers reported that the independent schools’ Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC), sensing dissatisfaction with university standards, were thinking of establishing an elite private university on the American liberal arts model. They proposed to name the university after Edward Thring, the nineteenth-century educationalist who founded the HMC and was the headmaster of Uppingham School from 1853 to 1887. He is known today for transforming Uppingham from a local school to an important national institution and for his widely emulated curriculum and pedagogic innovations. Indeed, it is now accepted that he had greater influence on independent school education than the more famous Thomas Arnold of Rugby, who was immortalised in Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857). In his lifetime, however, Thring was best known for an extraordinary episode in 1876, when he relocated boys, staff, and equipment some two hundred miles from Uppingham in Rutland in the east Midlands to Borth on the west Wales coast, to escape persistent outbreaks of typhoid fever in the school and town. Nigel Richardson’s new book is an exemplary history of this episode, meticulously researched and carefully analysed from the exceptionally rich records of the school, personal papers (including Thring’s diaries), and the files of local and central government. His narrative certainly throws new light on Thring and independent schools in the Victorian era, but its great novelty is that it provides the first history of English public health reform that is about rural rather than urban sanitation. Although his book is focused on a single small town over three years, Richardson’s great achievement is that he manages to illuminate the wider picture of medicine and public health in rural England in the mid-Victorian period. In the 1870s Uppingham was a small town of some two and a half thousand people in Rutland, England’s smallest county. It was unusual in being dominated by Thring’s school, which by the 1870s contributed significantly to the local economy. This was welcomed by the community, yet there was also resentment that local children no longer had access and that Thring often acted as though he was head of the town as well as the school. Matters came to a head in 1875 in disputes around two outbreaks of [End Page 642] typhoid fever. Richardson sets the scene for this in the first three chapters, which detail the economic and social history of the town, the structure and operation of its local government, and the character of its medical community. The book is worth reading for these alone, for what they reveal about the complexities of small town governance and its crowded medical market place. Typhoid fever was a major challenge to doctors and public health officials at this time; its outbreaks were sporadic, mortality could be high, and though there was a consensus that the best preventive was to improve water supplies and waste removal, its spread was capricious. Once the disease developed, isolation of sufferers was recommended, for while direct person-to-person contagion was infrequent, medical officials thought it prudent to be inclusive in their approach. Outbreaks of epidemic diseases had occurred regularly in the town and school, but in 1875 typhoid fever was concentrated in the school, and its spread in the autumn caused alarm amongst staff and parents. Medically the questions concerned the cause of the outbreak and the proper actions to take, but in Uppingham they became focused on who was to blame and whose responsibility it was to take action. Thring pointed to the poor condition of the town’s sewers, water supply, and streets, and to the inaction over many years of the Poor Law Guardians. The town’s officials pointed to the school, its rapid expansion without adequate infrastructure, and the laxity of its medical officer, Thomas Bell. Outbreaks continued over the winter of 1875 to 1876, and the dispute...

Application of the Newell Liberal Arts Model for Interdisciplinary Course Design and Implementation

Health professions faculty think that interdisciplinary education is critical for students pursuing careers as health care professionals. Initial attempts at interdisciplinary education by simply combining students into groups without adequate curriculum adaptation, preparation, and planning have been ineffective. Applying the liberal arts interdisciplinary model, developed by William Newell, a transdisciplinary faculty team in the College of Health Professions of the University of New England identified the course content, design, and instructional processes necessary to create an interdisciplinary elective course. The eight-step model and how it was applied to the development of an ethics course for seven different health care professional disciplines is presented. The result of this applied design approach was a course that assisted the transition of health care professional students previously accustomed to studying and working within their own discipline to communicate, cooperate, and collaborate across discipline-specific lines.

Introduction: The Future of Universities and the Fate of Free Inquiry and Academic Freedom

Benjamin Lee explores the state of academic freedom and the effects of the present financial crises and posits an alternative to the classical liberal arts model.

Investigative learning in exercise physiology research: a liberal arts model

The preparation of students to enter research, clinical, fitness, or management fields is a critical component of our efforts to promote a healthy lifestyle and curb the prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. We report on the impact of investigative learning on exercise science education in a small, liberal arts college. An NSF award facilitated the acquisition of equipment for assessment of physical fitness and performance. Laboratories were redesigned with emphasis on student‐centered investigative activities. Impact was assessed via student surveys and the number and quality of independent research projects. Surveys revealed that 86% of the students found that the equipment improved their laboratory experience and 65% noted that the availability of equipment influenced their choice of research project; 92% indicated that the laboratories enhanced their understanding of the physiological processes during exercise. All students indicated that the experiences enhanced their confidence in designing and conducting experiments. During the last 2 years 8 student research projects were carried out. The laboratory has become a favorite among the 600 middle and high school students who have visited our facilities. Current science education strategies should be applied in Exercise Science education.Supported by a grant from the NSF‐DUE‐CCLI (0511219).

Coaching and Directing Shakespeare’s The Tempest: A Liberal Arts Model

(2005). Coaching and Directing Shakespeare’s The Tempest: A Liberal Arts Model. Voice and Speech Review: Vol. 4, Shakespeare Around the Globe, pp. 170-172.

Environmental Education in Tourism – A Comparison between Canada and Japan

With an increase in concern over the state of the planet, environmental education has come to the forefront. While environmental impacts and sustainable tourism development have dominated recent tourism research, this trend—until recently—has only received minimal coverage in the tourism curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to examine the models of the tourism programs at the university level and to investigate the level of environmental education in undergraduate tourism programs in Canadian and Japanese universities. Course descriptions were collected and analyzed. The Business/Management Model dominates Japanese universities while tourism in Canada is mainly offered under the Liberal Arts Model. There are few tourism degree programs with an environmental focus, however, a growing number of ‘tourism and environment’ courses are identified. With tourism emerging as one of the largest interrelated global industries, there is a need to increase the level of holistic environmental education across tourism degree programs.