The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education

The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education PDF Author: Kathryn Telling
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 144735947X
Category : Education, Higher
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
By examining the emergence and growth of liberal arts degrees in English higher education, this book tackles one of the key issues in the critical sociology of higher education: the relationship between selective education and elitism.

The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education

The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education PDF Author: Kathryn Telling
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 144735947X
Category : Education, Higher
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
By examining the emergence and growth of liberal arts degrees in English higher education, this book tackles one of the key issues in the critical sociology of higher education: the relationship between selective education and elitism.

The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education

The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education PDF Author: Kathryn Telling
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1447359488
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
The liberal arts approach to higher education is a growing trend globally. We are told that the mental dexterity and independent, questioning spirit cultivated by such interdisciplinary degrees are the best preparation for the as-yet unknown executive jobs of tomorrow. This book explores the significant recent growth of these degrees in England in order to address an enduring problem for higher education: the relationship between meritocracy and elitism. Against the view that the former is a myth providing rhetorical cover for the latter, it argues that these are two entangled, but discrete, value systems. Sociology must now pay attention to how students and academics attempt to disentangle them.

In Defense of a Liberal Education

In Defense of a Liberal Education PDF Author: Fareed Zakaria
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393247694
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 93

Get Book Here

Book Description
CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria argues for a renewed commitment to the world’s most valuable educational tradition. The liberal arts are under attack. The governors of Florida, Texas, and North Carolina have all pledged that they will not spend taxpayer money subsidizing the liberal arts, and they seem to have an unlikely ally in President Obama. While at a General Electric plant in early 2014, Obama remarked, "I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree." These messages are hitting home: majors like English and history, once very popular and highly respected, are in steep decline. "I get it," writes Fareed Zakaria, recalling the atmosphere in India where he grew up, which was even more obsessed with getting a skills-based education. However, the CNN host and best-selling author explains why this widely held view is mistaken and shortsighted. Zakaria eloquently expounds on the virtues of a liberal arts education—how to write clearly, how to express yourself convincingly, and how to think analytically. He turns our leaders' vocational argument on its head. American routine manufacturing jobs continue to get automated or outsourced, and specific vocational knowledge is often outdated within a few years. Engineering is a great profession, but key value-added skills you will also need are creativity, lateral thinking, design, communication, storytelling, and, more than anything, the ability to continually learn and enjoy learning—precisely the gifts of a liberal education. Zakaria argues that technology is transforming education, opening up access to the best courses and classes in a vast variety of subjects for millions around the world. We are at the dawn of the greatest expansion of the idea of a liberal education in human history.

Two Cheers for Higher Education

Two Cheers for Higher Education PDF Author: Steven Brint
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691182663
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 504

Get Book Here

Book Description
Focusing on the years 1980-2015, Brint details the trajectory of American universities, which was influenced by evolving standards of disciplinary professionalism, market-driven partnerships, and the goal of social inclusion.

Leadership and the Liberal Arts

Leadership and the Liberal Arts PDF Author: J. Wren
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230620140
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book Here

Book Description
A collection of essays by presidents of prominent liberal arts colleges and leading intellectuals who reflect on the meaning of educating individuals for leadership and how it can be accomplished in ways consistent with the missions of liberal arts institutions.

Knowledge and Money

Knowledge and Money PDF Author: Roger L. Geiger
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804749264
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 670

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explains how market forces are profoundly affecting finance, undergraduate education, basic research, and participation in regional and national economic development at American universities.

The Jesus Legend

The Jesus Legend PDF Author: Paul Rhodes Eddy
Publisher: Baker Academic
ISBN: 0801031141
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Get Book Here

Book Description
Confronts the "legendary Jesus" case, showing how the Synoptic Gospels are the most historically probable representation of the actual Jesus of history.

College

College PDF Author: Andrew Delbanco
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691246386
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
The strengths and failures of the American college, and why liberal education still matters As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the narrow aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. The traditional four-year college experience—an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values with the help of teachers and peers—is in danger of becoming a thing of the past. In College, prominent cultural critic Andrew Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of such an education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In describing what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise. In a brisk and vivid historical narrative, Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America’s colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. Acknowledging the serious financial, intellectual, and ethical challenges that all colleges face today, Delbanco considers what is at stake in the urgent effort to protect these venerable institutions for future generations.

Beyond the University

Beyond the University PDF Author: Michael S. Roth
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300206550
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contentious debates over the benefits—or drawbacks—of a liberal education are as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to the Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its irrelevance and elitism—often calling for more vocational instruction. Thomas Jefferson, by contrast, believed that nurturing a student’s capacity for lifelong learning was useful for science and commerce while also being essential for democracy. In this provocative contribution to the disputes, university president Michael S. Roth focuses on important moments and seminal thinkers in America’s long-running argument over vocational vs. liberal education. Conflicting streams of thought flow through American intellectual history: W. E. B. DuBois’s humanistic principles of pedagogy for newly emancipated slaves developed in opposition to Booker T. Washington’s educational utilitarianism, for example. Jane Addams’s emphasis on the cultivation of empathy and John Dewey’s calls for education as civic engagement were rejected as impractical by those who aimed to train students for particular economic tasks. Roth explores these arguments (and more), considers the state of higher education today, and concludes with a stirring plea for the kind of education that has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.

Lost in Thought

Lost in Thought PDF Author: Zena Hitz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691229198
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book Here

Book Description
An invitation to readers from every walk of life to rediscover the impractical splendors of a life of learning In an overloaded, superficial, technological world, in which almost everything and everybody is judged by its usefulness, where can we turn for escape, lasting pleasure, contemplation, or connection to others? While many forms of leisure meet these needs, Zena Hitz writes, few experiences are so fulfilling as the inner life, whether that of a bookworm, an amateur astronomer, a birdwatcher, or someone who takes a deep interest in one of countless other subjects. Drawing on inspiring examples, from Socrates and Augustine to Malcolm X and Elena Ferrante, and from films to Hitz's own experiences as someone who walked away from elite university life in search of greater fulfillment, Lost in Thought is a passionate and timely reminder that a rich life is a life rich in thought. Today, when even the humanities are often defended only for their economic or political usefulness, Hitz says our intellectual lives are valuable not despite but because of their practical uselessness. And while anyone can have an intellectual life, she encourages academics in particular to get back in touch with the desire to learn for its own sake, and calls on universities to return to the person-to-person transmission of the habits of mind and heart that bring out the best in us. Reminding us of who we once were and who we might become, Lost in Thought is a moving account of why renewing our inner lives is fundamental to preserving our humanity.