Liberal Education And The Idea Of The University

Author : Karim Dharamsi,James Zimmer
Publisher : Vernon Press
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2019-05-07
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781622735600

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Liberal Education and the Idea of the University by Karim Dharamsi,James Zimmer Pdf

The idea of the university and the idea of liberal education share a family resemblance. However, it is not always explicitly clear what they have in common and what differentiates them. This collection brings together arguments and reflections on the nature of the university and the place of liberal learning in the 21st century. It is divided into two parts. In the first part authors examine the values and ideals that shape our understanding of liberal learning and the university; in the second part authors consider pedagogies informing our practices, asking after what underlying presuppositions, when made explicit, guide our liberal education classrooms in higher education. Unique in its approaches, this volume includes defenses of liberal education’s intrinsic value, the commodification of some of its best ideals, as well as utilitarian defenses that challenge some orthodox conceptions of liberal learning and its justifications. Each in its own right understands liberal learning as essential to the defense of a democratic order. On the pedagogical side, included are essays that defend a view of liberal education from the vantage of STEM subjects, including architecture, as well as those we typically associate with the liberal arts. This volume will aid academics and students seeking to better grasp an understanding of liberal education, but also those seeking to advance their pedagogical ideas about liberal learning. Researchers and students in education, higher education and those interested in the liberal arts and sciences will find this volume a useful addition to their collection.

Author : Michael S. Roth
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2014-05-28
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780300206555

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Beyond the University by Michael S. Roth Pdf

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.

Author : Fareed Zakaria
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 176 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2015-03-30
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780393247695

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In Defense of a Liberal Education by Fareed Zakaria Pdf

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.

Author : Shashikala Srinivasan
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 246 pages
File Size : 47,6 Mb
Release : 2018-08-06
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780429835308

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Liberal Education and Its Discontents by Shashikala Srinivasan Pdf

What explains the peculiar trajectory of the university and liberal education in India? Can we understand the crisis in the university in terms of the idea of education underlying it? This book explores these vital questions and traces the intellectual history of the idea of education and the cluster of concepts associated with it. It probes into the cultural roots of liberal education and seeks to understand its scope, effects and limits when transplanted into the Indian context. With an extensive analysis of the philosophical writing on the idea of university and education in the West and colonial documents on education in India, the book reconstructs the ideas of Gandhi and Tagore on education and learning as a radical alternative to the inherited, European model. The author further reflects upon how we can successfully deepen liberal education in India as well as construct alternative models that will help us diversify higher learning for future generations. Lucid, extensive and of immediate interest, this book will be useful for scholars and researchers interested in the history and philosophy of education and culture, social epistemology, ethics, postcolonial studies, cultural studies and public policy.

Author : John Henry Newman
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 616 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 1893
Category : Education, Higher
ISBN : HARVARD:32044020569372

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The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated by John Henry Newman Pdf

Author : James Cote,Anton L. Allahar
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 257 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2011-01-15
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781442660038

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Lowering Higher Education by James Cote,Anton L. Allahar Pdf

What happens to the liberal arts and science education when universities attempt to sell it as a form of job training? In Lowering Higher Education, a follow-up to their provocative 2007 book Ivory Tower Blues, James E. Côté and Anton L. Allahar explore the subverted 'idea of the university' and the forces that have set adrift the mission of these institutions. Côté and Allahar connect the corporatization of universities to a range of contentious issues within higher education, from lowered standards and inflated grades to the overall decline of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural Sciences instruction. Lowering Higher Education points to a fundamental disconnect between policymakers, who may rarely set foot in contemporary classrooms, and the teachers who must implement their educational policies—which the authors argue are poorly informed—on a daily basis. Côté and Allahar expose stakeholder misconceptions surrounding the current culture of academic disengagement and supposed power of new technologies to motivate students. While outlining what makes the status quo dysfunctional, Lowering Higher Education also offers recommendations that have the potential to reinvigorate liberal education.

Author : William Moner,Phillip Motley,Rebecca Pope-Ruark
Publisher : Johns Hopkins University Press
Page : 349 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2020-07-07
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781421438214

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Redesigning Liberal Education by William Moner,Phillip Motley,Rebecca Pope-Ruark Pdf

Voelker, Scott Windham, Mary C. Wright, Catherine Zeek

Author : Meira Levinson
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 50,6 Mb
Release : 1999-09-23
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780191522499

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The Demands of Liberal Education by Meira Levinson Pdf

What should the aims of education be in a liberal society and who should exercise control over education? How can children be taught to become good citizens of a pluralistic state? The Demands of Liberal Education seeks to answer these questions by drawing upon political theory, philosophy of education, and empirical research to develop a liberal theory of children's education that is provocative and new. The book argues that contrary to the assumptions of many philosophers, educators, parents and politicians, the liberal state is obligated as a matter of justice to help all children develop the capacity for autonomy. Levinson argues that liberal governments should exercise much greater control over schools than they now do.

Author : J.M. Cameron
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 92 pages
File Size : 51,8 Mb
Release : 1972-12-15
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781442654426

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On the Idea of a University by J.M. Cameron Pdf

Starting from Newman`s concept of the university as a place of liberal education, Professor Cameron examines how today`s university functions, what its aims should be and what its strengths and deficiencies are, and presents some proposals for reform. He argues that liberal education, in which knowledge is pursued for its own sake as well as for the advantages it may bring, should remain the core of university studies, although he emphasizes that natural science and the technologies, as well as the traditional art subjects, may be studied liberally in the university. In the course of a rich and broad-ranging discussion, he singles out parasensical discourse – a kind of curious verbal play, neither sense nor nonsense, designed to inculcate attitudes, not convey information – as a symptom of the crisis in the university today. Cameron`s trenchant analysis of it and of the serious ills that it represents is particularly relevant to an understanding of the controversy surrounding modern university education. The four lectures in this volume were originally delivered to mark the sesquicentennial of the University of Toronto and the 125th anniversary of Saint Michael`s College. The occasion, Cameron writes, `gave me a chance to consider the nature and spirit of the institution within which I have spent most of my working life. At a time when the value of university education is being questioned, Cameron provides a fresh perspective on the university`s purpose, its form, and its future. The volume is published in association with the University of Saint Michael`s College by University of Toronto Press.

Author : Jonathan Marks
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 50,8 Mb
Release : 2023-01-31
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780691207728

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Let's Be Reasonable by Jonathan Marks Pdf

A conservative college professor's compelling defense of liberal education Not so long ago, conservative intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. believed universities were worth fighting for. Today, conservatives seem more inclined to burn them down. In Let's Be Reasonable, conservative political theorist and professor Jonathan Marks finds in liberal education an antidote to this despair, arguing that the true purpose of college is to encourage people to be reasonable—and revealing why the health of our democracy is at stake. Drawing on the ideas of John Locke and other thinkers, Marks presents the case for why, now more than ever, conservatives must not give up on higher education. He recognizes that professors and administrators frequently adopt the language and priorities of the left, but he explains why conservative nightmare visions of liberal persecution and indoctrination bear little resemblance to what actually goes on in college classrooms. Marks examines why advocates for liberal education struggle to offer a coherent defense of themselves against their conservative critics, and demonstrates why such a defense must rest on the cultivation of reason and of pride in being reasonable. More than just a campus battlefield guide, Let's Be Reasonable recovers what is truly liberal about liberal education—the ability to reason for oneself and with others—and shows why the liberally educated person considers reason to be more than just a tool for scoring political points.

Author : John Churchill
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Page : 153 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2021-02-23
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780813945781

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The Problem with Rules by John Churchill Pdf

There is a constant drumbeat of commentary claiming that STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, and math—are far more valuable in today’s economy than traditional liberal arts courses such as philosophy or history. Many even claim that the liberal arts are "under siege" by neoliberal politicians and cost-conscious university administrators. In a forceful response, The Problem with Rules establishes the essential value of the liberal arts as the pedagogical pathway to critical thinking and moral character and argues for more not less emphasis in higher education. John Churchill asserts that the liberal arts are more than decorative frills. Drawing from the philosophy of Wittgenstein to craft a cogent, inspired argument, Churchill insists on the liberal arts’ indispensable role, providing in this book a clarion call to politicians, university administrators, and all Americans to recognize and actively support and nurture the liberal arts.

Author : Richard A. Detweiler
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 311 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2021-11-23
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780262543101

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The Evidence Liberal Arts Needs by Richard A. Detweiler Pdf

Empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education: how and why it has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment. In ongoing debates over the value of a college education, the role of the liberal arts in higher education has been blamed by some for making college expensive, impractical, and even worthless. Defenders argue that liberal arts education makes society innovative, creative, and civic-minded. But these qualities are hard to quantify, and many critics of higher education call for courses of study to be strictly job-specific. In this groundbreaking book, Richard Detweiler, drawing on interviews with more than 1,000 college graduates aged 25 to 65, offers empirical evidence for the value of a liberal arts education. Detweiler finds that a liberal arts education has a lasting impact on success, leadership, altruism, learning, and fulfillment over a lifetime. Unlike other defenders of a liberal arts education, Detweiler doesn’t rely on philosophical arguments or anecdotes but on data. He developed a series of interview questions related to the content attributes of liberal arts (for example, course assignments and majors), the context attributes (out-of-class interaction with faculty and students, teaching methods, campus life), and the purpose attributes (adult life outcomes). Interview responses show that although both the content of study and the educational context are associated with significant life outcomes, the content of study has less relationship to positive adult life outcomes than the educational context. The implications of this research, Detweiler points out, range from the advantages of broadening areas of study to factors that could influence students’ decisions to attend certain colleges.

Author : Darryl Gless,Barbara Herrnstein Smith
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Education
ISBN : 0822311992

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The Politics of Liberal Education by Darryl Gless,Barbara Herrnstein Smith Pdf

Controversy over what role “the great books” should play in college curricula and questions about who defines “the literary canon” are at the forefront of debates in higher education. The Politics of Liberal Education enters this discussion with a sophisticated defense of educational reform in response to attacks by academic traditionalists. The authors here—themselves distinguished scholars and educators—share the belief that American schools, colleges, and universities can do a far better job of educating the nation’s increasingly diverse population and that the liberal arts must play a central role in providing students with the resources they need to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing world. Within this area of consensus, however, the contributors display a wide range of approaches, illuminating the issues from the perspectives of their particular disciplines—classics, education, English, history, and philosophy, among others—and their individual experiences as teachers. Among the topics they discuss are canon-formation in the ancient world, the idea of a “common culture,” and the educational implications of such social movements as feminism, technological changes including computers and television, and intellectual developments such as “theory.” Readers interested in the controversies over American education will find this volume an informed alternative to sensationalized treatments of these issues. Contributors. Stanley Fish, Phyllis Franklin, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Henry A. Giroux, Darryl J. Gless, Gerald Graff, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, George A. Kennedy, Bruce Kuklick, Richard A. Lanham, Elizabeth Kamarck Minnich, Alexander Nehamas, Mary Louise Pratt, Richard Rorty, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

Author : Paul Axelrod
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Education
ISBN : 077352407X

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Values in Conflict by Paul Axelrod Pdf

An impassioned defence of the liberal arts.

Author : Andrew Delbanco
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2023-04-18
Category : Education
ISBN : 9780691246383

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College by Andrew Delbanco Pdf

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.