Traditional Liberal Arts Research Articles

Emerson’s Scholar: A Transcendental Response for Sentient Resilience

Abstract In this essay, I engage in an interpretive and critical analysis of Emerson’s The American Scholar (1837) essay wherein he states, “Our day of dependence, our longstanding apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close.” I assert that the educational philosophy Emerson posits in this essay on how to educate the new American intellectual of his time, which includes curricular engagement with nature, books, action, and the development of the human traits Emerson characterized as “man thinking,” continues to be relevant for informing contemporary forms of liberal learning curricula; indeed, some of these curricula can represent a Transcendentalist response to the decaying effects of neo-liberal economic interests, anti-intellectual impulses, and the neglect of the perennial idea of learning for its own sake. I contemporize and critique Emerson’s ideas explored in The American Scholar by including the work of two philosophers namely Murray Miles and Iris Murdoch; and, Emerson and Transcendentalism scholars including Barbara Packer and Robert D. Richardson Jr. and others provide contextual insights about The American Scholar address’s implications for achieving self-reliance and a more autonomous creative impulse initiated through the liberal arts tradition, with special attention to the essential literary works of humanity.

A spirit of service in liberal arts education: the legacy from China’s former Christian universities and the influence of contrasting social contexts

AbstractLiberal arts education in Chinese higher education can be traced back to the liberal arts tradition that existed in China’s former Christian universities prior to the 1950s. The mission and goal of liberal arts education in Chinese contexts focuses on cultivating whole persons to serve their societies. Using data from documents and interviews, the study examines the liberal arts tradition for developing whole persons with a spirit of service in China’s former Christian universities. It also explores to what extent the legacy has been carried on to the development of liberal arts education in contemporary universities in Chinese societies (Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan). The study provides insight into how some elements of whole person development from faith-based education could contribute to today’s higher education reform in terms of the goals of global citizen cultivation.

Exploration of Teaching Reform in Emergency Management Courses under the "New Liberal Arts" Context

The "New Liberal Arts" initiative advocates breaking free from traditional liberal arts thinking, fostering cross-disciplinary integration and fusion across multiple fields, while shifting the focus from discipline-centric to socially-driven needs. In this context, emergency management courses must adapt to the evolving demands of talent cultivation and educational reform. This paper outlined four key requirements, examined the current state of course instruction, and proposed reform measures such as enhancing practical training, strengthening industry-education integration, incorporating interdisciplinary knowledge, and embedding ideological and political elements. These efforts aimed to comprehensively improve teaching quality, cultivating emergency management professionals equipped to meet the challenges of the new era.

Rethinking the Criteria for Liberal Education Courses

Sheldon Rothblatt argues that the subject does not define liberal education but rather that anything taught liberally constitutes liberal education. We partially agree with Rothblatt's assertion. In short, while we concur with his claim that not all traditional liberal arts automatically constitute liberal education, we believe that for liberal education to be taught and learned liberally, the curriculum should be centered around the traditional liberal arts. This argument unfolds in three distinct phases, each contributing to a deeper understanding of liberal education. The first phase delves into the elements that define liberal education, drawing on Rothblatt's assertion and the case of Harvard's general education. This analysis presents civic engagement and adaptability as crucial yet often overlooked components of liberal education. In the second phase, we introduce the concepts of ‘fundamentality’ and ‘openness’ as pivotal to liberal teaching within liberal education. ‘Fundamentality’ refers to the ability to question fundamental principles, laws, and assumptions openly. To satisfy these elements, we argue that disciplines from the traditional liberal arts are indispensable in liberal education. The final phase will demonstrate the need for ‘fundamentality’ and ‘openness’ through the example of logical education. We will illustrate issues that arise from using inference rules of classical logic without precisely understanding their meaning and show that overcoming these problems requires openness to questioning. This will show why the liberal education curriculum should be structured around traditional liberal arts disciplines.

Implications for the Organization and Operation of Liberal Arts Curriculum by the Difference in Educational Consumers' Perception of the Identity and Content of Liberal Arts Education

The purpose of this study is to examine whether there are differences in the perception of the importance of liberal arts education by role and content for each educational consumer and to derive implications for how to reflect these differences in the organization and operation of the liberal arts curriculum. To achieve this, basic statistical analyses and one-way ANOVA were conducted on survey data collected from 1,720 students, faculty, graduates, and industry representatives in Busan, Korea. The results confirmed differences in perception among each educational consumer regarding which role of general education is considered more important. In particular, students perceived all roles of general education except for ‘complementing major education’ as less important compared to other consumer groups. Clear differences were also observed in the importance attributed to specific content areas by each group. While Faculty and industry representatives perceived the importance of humanities most highly, students and graduates prioritized employment-related areas such as practical skills, IT utilization skills, and foreign language abilities. Moreover, they perceived the importance of humanities and social sciences, which correspond to the traditional liberal arts and education areas, as less significant. Based on this difference in perception of the educational consumer groups, four implications for practitioners to consider in the process of development and implementation of liberal arts education were proposed.

The Crisis in Foundational Studies and the Necessity of a Liberal Arts and Sciences College(LASC)

This paper addresses the inherent contradiction in universities since their inception, which involves the harmonization of discourse between liberal arts and specialized education and the creation of intellectuals with a blend of both general and specialized knowledge. Instead of resorting to traditional liberal arts approaches, this paper proposes a solution to the crisis in foundational studies from the perspective of creating a new paradigm known as “New Liberal Arts,” overcoming the internal contradictions fundamentally present in universities. Alongside this perspective, this paper reexamines the importance of foundational studies in today's context, taking into consideration the current crisis in Korean universities. It acknowledges the harsh reality of university restructuring and seeks practical approaches that account for the interdependence between universities and businesses, proposing a university reform framework. The paper suggests the establishment of a liberal arts and sciences college (LASC) as a realistic solution to reconstruct the university ecosystem within a society. Within this academic structure, this paper outlines a three-stage curriculum involving the classical liberal arts, foundational convergence education curriculum, and New Liberal Arts.

Research on the Status Quo and Countermeasures in Curriculum Ideology and Politics Teaching of English Courses Under the Background of New Liberal Arts Construction

New Liberal Arts, as an innovative development in the field of traditional liberal arts education, is a new form of discipline that takes inheritance and innovation, crossover and integration, synergy and sharing as the main way, and promotes the crossover and in-depth integration of multiple disciplines in a demand-oriented way. Curriculum ideology and politics is an important direction for the construction of English curriculum in colleges and universities at this stage, which can effectively improve the teaching effect of English curriculum, help colleges and universities and English teachers to build a perfect English curriculum system, and effectively play the nurturing value of English curriculum, realizing the synergistic nurturing of English professional knowledge and ideology and politics theory. Based on this, this paper analyzes the significance of English curriculum ideology and politics, discusses the problems of English curriculum ideology and politics at this stage, and then puts forward relevant suggestions in the hope of improving the construction effect of English curriculum ideology and politics, and effectively integrating the elements of ideology and politics into the teaching activities of English curriculum in colleges and universities.

Research on the Construction of Deep Learning-oriented College English Blended Gold Courses in the Context of New Liberal Arts

Comprehensively promoting the construction of new liberal arts is an inevitable requirement for the education and teaching reform of liberal arts majors in colleges and universities in the new era. Different from the traditional liberal arts, the new liberal arts can better serve the national development and regional social progress. Based on the background of the new liberal arts, this paper discusses its new requirements for College English. By investigating the current situation of College English blended teaching, the paper finds the deficiencies, and combines the concept of deep learning to mainly analyze the necessity of applying it to college English teaching. On this basis, it puts forward new initiatives for building the deep learning-oriented blended College English gold courses based on the new liberal arts from five aspects, namely, teaching environment, teaching resources, teaching process, assessment system, and teacher literacy, so as to promote the connotative and innovative development of the College English course and achieve the goal of all-round education.

Needs Analysis of College Students for ESP Under the Scope “New Liberal Arts”

The term “new liberal arts” encourages integrating traditional liberal arts with other disciplines to promote the efficacy of education. It has been well received all around China, especially in higher education. Under such a background, ESP courses must be tailored to equip college students with sufficient knowledge and training that integrates English with professional expertise. The researchers designed a questionnaire to collect data from five perspectives to better gain insight into students’ needs for ESP courses. The central part of the questionnaire adopted 32 items of the Likert scale and one open-ended question, focusing on the evaluation of ESP courses, assessment of students’ current English ability, students’ needs for ESP courses, and what are the main problems hindering current ESP teaching for students and teachers. The questionnaire was distributed to the participants on an online survey platform. The participants were junior or senior undergraduates and ESP teachers from twelve public universities in China. After the survey, the researchers collected 1078 questionnaires for students and 213 for teachers. The results showed that students and teachers did not think positively of current ESP courses and students’ current English ability, and students had the need for ESP courses on different scales. Furthermore, the study also found that there were discrepancies between the students and teachers with regard to specific items. The findings suggest that an interdisciplinary perspective is needed when carrying out ESP courses, and consensus-based collaboration between students and teachers is also indispensable.

Exploration on teaching reform of non-accounting major “Accounting” under the background of new liberal arts

With the proposal of the new liberal arts concept, the traditional liberal arts education model is facing new challenges. In the future, more attention will be paid to the cultivation of composite talents, and cross-integration knowledge will become an important part of the future classroom teaching reform. Based on the analysis of the teaching status quo and problems of the Accounting course, and through the reform and innovation of curriculum setting, course content, teaching means, teaching evaluation and other aspects, It aims to improve the quality of personnel training and provide reference for the teaching reform of Accounting in other universities under the background of new liberal arts.

Research on the Implementation Path of Labor Education within the “New Liberal Arts” Framework

Abstract The essence of the “new” in “new liberal arts” construction centers on innovative thinking, integrating labor education into professional curricula, enhancing labor training requirements, and achieving comprehensive optimization, advancement, and empowerment of the professional development and talent cultivation systems in traditional liberal arts disciplines. This approach aims to foster improved talent development models and educational reforms. In the context of “new liberal arts” construction, using the environmental design major’s focus on “what type of individuals to cultivate” as a research foundation, a top-down design is implemented. This design incorporates the concept of labor education into the overarching objectives of professional talent development and every facet of course instruction. It guides students to emphasize hands-on experience in their professional studies and gain valuable insights while developing their understanding of the world. The ultimate goal is to cultivate moral character, enhance intellectual capabilities, strengthen physical well-being, and foster innovation through labor-oriented education.

5 New College of Florida faculty denied tenure

The New College of Florida’s board of trustees has denied tenure to five faculty members in a 6–4 vote. Among them were organic chemistry professors Rebecca Black and Lin Jiang. All five faculty were recommended for tenure on Feb. 24, after completing their tenure packages a year ahead of schedule. Their last hurdle was approval by the board. But in a memo sent to trustees 12 days before the April 26 board of trustees meeting, New College interim president Richard Corcoran recommends that the board either defer or deny the professors’ tenure, citing “extraordinary circumstances,” a point he reiterated during the meeting . The circumstances include changes to the administration and “a renewed focus on ensuring the College is moving towards a more traditional liberal arts institution,” the memo said. He also noted the recent turnover of a large number of trustees. The six who voted to deny tenure to

Exploration on Ideological and Political Construction of E-Commerce Courses Under the Background of New Liberal Arts

The Curriculum ideological and political construction is currently an important means of cultivating top talents in the new era, and is also a key step in implementing the task of "moral education" in universities. The purpose of curriculum ideological and political concepts is to impart knowledge and shape values. The construction of new liberal arts refers to the intersection of arts and science, integrating information technology into traditional liberal arts courses. The rapidly developing e-commerce industry urgently needs a large number of professional and technical talents adapted to China's national conditions. In this article, we introduced ideological and political curriculum, adjusted the training program, and designed the construction path of ideological and political curriculum. Firstly, we scientifically designed the curriculum ideological and political teaching system, implementing the curriculum ideological and political and new liberal arts concepts into the teaching system; Secondly, we introduced "moral education evaluation" into the evaluation system, and constructed a mixed online and offline teaching evaluation system based on curriculum ideology and politics; Finally, we integrate national and family feelings into professional education, and integrate the concepts of "the Belt and Road", Silk Road e-commerce, rural e-commerce and other concepts into e-commerce professional education. Based on the above exploration, e-commerce talents with good professional skills and ethics could be cultivated to achieve the goal of "educating people for the Party and the country".

Soft Eyes in an Empty Box

Abstract The article recounts the author's experiences designing an undergraduate business writing course that bridges the long-standing divide between the traditional liberal arts and professionally-oriented forms of education. This course, organized around the television series The Wire, helps students grapple with the interpretive complexities that shape contemporary institutional life.

Stratford Caldecott’s Idea of Education

This essay overviews key aspects of Stratford Caldecott’s idea of liberal arts education, within the Roman Catholic tradition and especially focuses on the centrality of the Eucharist in his thought. It also considers how, according to Caldecott, liberal arts education contains a kind of liturgical affordance or sympathy with the form and nature of worship (within Roman Catholicism). In so doing, this paper offers, to date, the most substantive scholarly introduction to key aspects of Caldecott’s Eucharistic idea of education, within the context of the liberal arts tradition (broadly conceived).

Music as a Liberal Art: The Poetry of the Universe

This article explores the place of music in the classical liberal arts curriculum, which consists of the trivium (the arts of language) and the quadrivium (the arts of number). Music is part of the quadrivial disciplines and studied as applied arithmetic. However, as argued in this article, it is also a bridge to the discipline of rhetoric, which is part of the trivium. The article begins with a brief review of St. Augustine’s De Musica, the first in a planned (but unrealized) series of dialogs on the value of the classical liberal arts to the emerging Christian culture of Antiquity. It proceeds to a discussion of music and its relation to the contemporary American liberal arts curriculum. Two case studies follow that address the ontological reality of music as a time-bound medium, and attempts to mute this reality in the service of creating a sense of timelessness. Thus subsuming the temporal into the Divine–what Augustine called “a poem of the universe”. The first case study is Dante Alighieri’s Paradiso, which is a journey through the heavens with each planet representing one of the seven liberal arts as preparatory to the Beatific Vision. The second case study focuses on J.S. Bach’s attempts to create a sense of timelessness in the St. Matthew Passion by the use of musical forms and musical rhetorical devices that tend to abolish time. The article concludes with suggestions on how teachers can use 20th and 21st-century movements in Western art music as pathways to appreciate music’s pivotal role in the Catholic liberal arts tradition.

Interdisciplinary Education of Foreign Language Majors in Chinese Local Universities under the Background of New Liberal Arts

New liberal arts refer to the reorganization of traditional liberal arts to realize the intersection and integration within liberal arts and between liberal arts and natural sciences. The characteristics of new liberal arts are mainly problem-orientation, cross-integration, new technology application and innovative development. Under the background of new liberal arts, the implementation of interdisciplinary education in foreign language majors is an effective way for local colleges and universities to promote the construction of "new foreign languages" and the training of interdisciplinary and applied foreign language talents. Based on the connotations of new liberal arts and interdisciplinary education, and in view of the institutional and cultural barriers to the planning and implementation of interdisciplinary education, this paper proposes an optimized path for the design and implementation of interdisciplinary education for foreign language majors in local colleges and universities: deepen the integration between foreign language majors and other disciplines, build a staged, multi-level talent training system, set up cross-discipline curricular groups, apply new technology to transform traditional teaching and learning methods, strengthen the construction of interdisciplinary education platforms and faculties, and establish a foreign language interdisciplinary education system guarantee mechanism.

Innovation of French Interpretation Teaching Mode in the New Liberal Arts Environment.

The status of French as a language has improved to some extent in recent years as a result of the exchange and blending of cultures from various nations. Each language, including French, must undergo a protracted process in order to become more widely spoken. It is essential to develop top-notch French interpreters in order to lower the barriers preventing cross-border communication. The teaching of French interpretation has recently received more attention in many colleges, but the issue of a single teaching method has long persisted. In recent years, a new approach to teaching the liberal arts has emerged. Its main goal is to implement comprehensive interdisciplinary teaching by fusing contemporary information technology with traditional liberal arts instruction. This paper conducted a cutting-edge study on the teaching method of French interpretation against the backdrop of the new liberal arts in order to alter the teaching strategy and increase teaching effectiveness. In this paper, an intelligent interpretation teaching system was constructed using information technology. Through text classification algorithms, it incorporated and optimized teaching resources. According to the experimental findings, the teaching process was optimized, and the teaching efficiency increased by 7.94% when French interpretation was taught against a backdrop of new liberal arts.

The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education, Revised Edition

The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education, Revised Edition

Old Neoliberalism in the US University

Old Neoliberalism in the US University