Search

Education in the arts and humanities has always been important to the United States' arts and culture and to its competitiveness in a global economy. Providing all students with a complete education in the arts and humanities can help them cope with, and master, the fast-paced technological advances, forces of globalization, and major demographic and societal shifts that characterize today's world. In the United States and elsewhere, growth of arts, cultural, and intellectual property sectors is outpacing that of the economy as a whole. Other nations are forging education and workforce policies based on this fact. Research has provided evidence that K-12 arts education can help the United States achieve the following national objectives: (1) achieve school standards; (2) reach all learners; and (3) help youth develop positively. Education policy and action in general--and arts education policy and programs in particular--require the commitment and engagement of a multiplicity of stakeholders at the federal, state, and local levels. The United States needs a comprehensive strategy linking education--including education in the arts and humanities--with workforce development as the principal cornerstone for strengthening the country's social capital and developing the skills needed for U.S. workers to remain competitive in the 21st century. (Forty-six endnotes are included. The bibliography lists 22 references.) (MN)

This document examines the notion of the "public humanities," the humanities as they exist outside the university. The work seeks to provide an intellectual rationale for the public humanities through a bibliographic essay, reflections on readings, and a bibliography for further reference. In a separate appendix, a sample "User's Guide" attempts to address the question heard from curious audiences at public programs: what are the humanities, anyway? The booklet attempts to capture the complexity and ambiguity of the humanities, identifies reasons why defining the humanities is so difficult, and addresses how it might be possible to talk about the humanities. The ideal outcome of a discussion of the public humanities would be a general realization among people that they have been using the humanities all along and that the humanities can provide the foundation for a thoughtful and informed life. (LBG)

The role of Catholicism in American higher education is addressed in this collection of papers. The historical tradition of the Catholic university is discussed as well as the problems they must face. Issues examined include: political and financial concerns of church-related colleges and universities, the role of the university in higher education, and the role of the Catholic colleges and universities. The governance of Catholic institutions, their relationship to the church hierarchy, and planning for the future are also considered. Included are: Toward a True University, Truly Catholic (Edmund D. Pellegrino); Toward a Theology of Learning (Thomas Trotter); The University and Change in the Catholic World (Sargent Shriver); Homily for a Baccalaureate Ceremony (John Tracy Ellis); The Catholic College: A Question of Identity (Xavier G. Colavechio); The Emerging Guardianship of American Catholic Higher Education (Martin J. Stamm); Institutional Vitality, Up Against the Eighties (James A. Ebben); and The NEH Christian Humanism Project at Saint John's Collegeville (R. W. Franklin). (SF)

In 1985, the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges (AACJC) called together a group of two-year college leaders with a strong commitment to the humanities to explore issues and formulate a humanities policy statement for the AACJC. This monograph provides the resulting policy statement, as well as papers developed to stimulate interest in and encourage the continued study of the humanities in the two-year college. Following a preface by Dale Parnell describing the objectives and outcomes of the roundtable, Judith S. Eaton provides an introductory overview of the topic of humanities instruction in community colleges. The policy statement, "The Study of the Humanities in Community, Technical, and Junior Colleges," as adopted by the AACJC Board of Directors on April 12, 1986, is presented next. The next paper, "Staking a Claim to the Future: Humanities Studies in our Community Colleges," by Tziporah Kasachkoff and Joshua L. Smith, offers a critique of William Bennett's 1984 report, "To Reclaim a Legacy: A Report on the Humanities in Higher Education." Responses to the Humanities Policy Statement are offered by Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer in "The Humanities Revisited," which compares the 1985 recommendations with those of AACJC's 1979 Assembly on Strengthening the Humanities; and by W. J. Megginson in "A Reaction from the Community College Humanities Association." The final paper, "Kirkwood Community College: A Humanities Case Study," by Rhonda Kekke and Terry Moran describes the college's efforts to integrate the study of humanities into its varied curricula. A listing of roundtable participants is included. (LAL)

The purpose of this paper is to establish the position of the Michigan State Board of Education regarding the humanities through a definition and an explanation of the purposes of the humanities within the schools. The humanities are most clearly identified with philosophy, ethics, comparative religion, history and criticism of the arts. In the K-12 curriculum, the humanities are most frequently taught in the social studies, literature, foreign languages, music, and art courses. The humanities serve the most basic goals of public education by preparing students for citizenship and work environments, as well as enriching and rewarding their personal lives. The humanities can free each individual to pursue in a reflective and responsible way his or her individual vision. (SM)

This collection of essays makes some attempts to define the humanities and explore the social role they might play. Part 1 examines the role of the humanist in society and suggests that the humanist can perform a function when "justification" (the determination of what is right and wrong) is necessary. In part 2, the topic "the public humanist" is explored. This part looks at the challenges Montaigne chose to face and advocates that state humanities programs undertake similar challenges. It discusses the humanities as defined by Congress and whether humanists ought to "dirty their hands" in the public arena. Humanists are urged to overcome their wish for privacy and enter into a study of public issues. One author, in exploring a public role for the humanities, advocates that projects be created to honor the humanist and that humanists be willing to leave the ivory tower and talk to the public. A short concluding article summarizes some of the previous essays and discusses a few questions regarding state programs for the humanities. (Author/JM)

This collection of essays seeks to offer a composite portrait of state humanities programs from a wide range of viewpoints. Topics explored include: the role of the National Endowment for the Humanities; the importance of the humanities; origins and new directions for state programs; humanities and the issues of public policy, the arts, science, and the social sciences; the use of the media in state humanities programs; political ramifications in the areas of funding and accountability; and the difficulties that threaten the continuation of state humanities programs. A listing of state humanities councils is included in the appendix. The various authors stress that the values and wisdom promoted by the humanities make the development of state programs invaluable. (JK)

This paper argues that diversity and flexibility have been the cornerstones of the community college over the last three or four decades. Of recent interest has been the change in the student profile from that of the recent local high school graduate to the returning student, as well as a mix of international students. These international students range from the children of recent immigrants to newly arrived immigrants and refugees and children of well-off citizens of other countries. Those students come from a variety of economic and political situations, and they bring perspectives and experiences that enrich the educational community. The community college has responded with international campus organizations, language labs, multicultural textbooks, cultural events, and international fairs. This paper argues for making connections between the teaching profession and the possibilities for humanitarian action on a global level. The author suggests that community colleges put together credit-bearing humanitarian trips, particularly in light of the recent evidence of national isolation and defensiveness after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The paper concludes that the events of September 11 should encourage community colleges to broaden their outreach, and for the humanities to show that the idea of humanity has no borders. (NB)

At Norwalk Community College in Norwalk, Connecticut, a small group of faculty created three interdisciplinary courses with the belief that they would assist students in developing more finely honed critical thinking skills. One course is in the hard sciences, another in the social sciences, and another in the humanities. This paper discusses the ways in which the courses in the social sciences and the humanities encouraged students to cross disciplinary boundaries and examine contemporary issues from multiple perspectives. The humanities course included visual art, performance art, media arts, literature, music, and philosophy. The instructor established a theoretical grounding and then moved to practical experience by requiring students to do a creative project. The students also completed an experience paper, for which they were expected to view a work by a major artist. The social science course began by discussing the influences of the individual and society on one another. This course offered an overview of economic, philosophical, gender, class, race, and other issues in the chosen readings. The social science class began by presenting a theoretical basis for later class discussion of issues. It also examined the political, social, and economic roles of money in American society. Both courses asked students to pay attention, think, and consider real world consequences. (Author/NB)

This paper discusses several of the many books and articles which have appeared during the past decade which chronicle the supposedly precarious state of the humanities in higher education. The paper focuses on the first book, the surprise best seller, "The Closing of the American Mind," written by Allan Bloom in 1987 and especially on a new book written in 1997 by John N. Ellis, "Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities." The paper contends that in making their analyses these academic authors ignore any events which occur outside the university campus and that they also ignore the real reasons for the changing nature of humanities education in the United States. Contains 7 references. (Author)

This paper argues that current "postmodern" conditions demand a rethinking of higher education, especially in countries like Mexico. This would involve the rapprochement of science, technology, and the humanities, based on the belief that the chasm separating them, apart from being artificial, is no longer socially viable. Through a critical perspective that reviews the work of various authors and examines several theories, the paper proposes guidelines for a dialogue to reconcile these currently separated disciplinary domains, with the hope that it will be of aid in the timely formation of open, multidimensional, and critical university graduates. (Contains 36 references.) (Author)

This paper discusses the book "Achilles in Vietnam" (Jonathan Shay) in relation to Homer's "Iliad" and the need for society to accept the consequences of veterans' experiences. Classical allusions to the epic are incorporated into the study and U.S. experience of the Vietnam War. The paper advocates student "ownership" of literature study and permitting students to "humanize" the text by allowing and legitimatizing diverse interpretations. The paper maintains that only by such humanizing attempts can the humanities be made relevant to students' lives. (EH)

Intended for public comment and discussion, this document is the second volume of papers in which the Information Infrastructure Task Force has attempted to articulate in clear terms, with sufficient detail, how improvements in the National Information Infrastructure (NII) can help meet other social goals. These are not plans to be enacted, but the material with which the citizens and their government may have a structured conversation, a purposeful interaction, and deliberation on the issues raised in the evolution of more capable means of information processing and human communications. Eight papers are presented in this volume: (1) NII: An Investment in People with Disabilities; (2) Supply and Demand of Electric Power and the NII; (3) Improving Transportation: The NII and Intelligent Transportation Systems; (4) Promoting Telecommuting: An Application of the NII; (5) The Effect of NII on Local, State, and Federal Emergency Management; (6) Public Empowerment with Environmental Information; (7) Arts, Humanities, and Culture on the NII; and (8) Public Safety and the NII: Supporting Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice. Six of the papers include references. (BBM)

This paper details the benefits of interdisciplinary studies, with particular focus on the Humanities Enrichment Program at the Community College of Philadelphia. The program uses a team-teaching, linked-course paradigm. Two courses from different disciplines are aligned, and faculty from each discipline teach the linked courses as humanities courses within an interdisciplinary framework. The only requirement for the courses is that the students get above-average reading placement scores, or that they earn a grade of "B" or above in the college composition course. The two faculty members collaborate in the selection of materials, pedagogic techniques, assignment design, and evaluation. Students study a theme or topic by reading primary texts, often from across disciplines. Each instructor shares instructional time equally. The author argues against those who claim interdisciplinary studies do not ground students in the disciplinary ways of thinking by suggesting that lower-division students in general education courses need to strengthen their critical thinking and academic discourse skills more than they need to acquire in-depth disciplinary knowledge. The author provides, as a model, a description of how she taught the Hindu epic "Ramayana" along with Homer's epic "Iliad." Sample study questions and assignments are appended. (Author/NB)

This author argues that teachers of the humanities have the potential to enjoy, at the community college level, specific teaching opportunities that their university counterparts are less likely to exercise. University professors of upper-division and graduate students are more likely to find themselves teaching students about the particulars of job searching, rather than preparing them to be human beings in a social context. The place of the humanities in this quest has shifted, according to the article, to the community college. In the pursuit of this end, critical thinking should be the foremost goal of community college teachers. The author aims to define critical thinking, and cites some of his own teaching experiences as examples of how to help students to develop their critical thinking skills. The author cites his use of Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" in the classroom. The author's hope is that students will have a free-for-all discussion among themselves as opposed to a moderated discussion or a simple interrogation by the teacher. The author tries to avoid stepping in to moderate once discussion has begun, preferring instead to allow students to address one another. In addition, the aim should be to get the students to find something true in response to the questions posed rather than simply voice an opinion. (Author/NB)

This paper recounts development of a community college humanities course titled Human Rights/Human Wrongs: The History, Philosophy, Law, Art, and Literature of the Human Rights Movement. The author argues that a special focus, interdisciplinary course provides a broader base for exploring and understanding most of the pressing issues of our time. Following World War II, the United Nations' newly organized Human Rights Commission, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, was charged with drafting an international bill of rights. The result was the adoption by the UN of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The author uses the document as a textual basis for the class, which explores human rights issues in six units. The first unit explores the early modern period and the struggle for indigenous rights; the second unit examines issues of slavery; the third looks at industrialization and the labor movement and the demands for economic and social rights; the fourth unit takes up the issue of imperialism and subjugated peoples struggle for self-determination in the modern era; the fifth covers the civil rights movement and the vast expansion of human rights in the post-World War II era; the final unit is a study of globalization and the protest movement against it. The course examines how and why social change occurs, with the goal of helping students to explore the range of human kind's capacity for good and evil from their own perspective. (AUTH/NB)

This paper discusses the current division of knowledge at the college and university level, its historical roots, and the application of Actor Network Theory (ANT) to arrive at an explanation of the permanence of the current division of knowledge as well as what form a new division of knowledge might take. It finds fragmentation and disintegration characteristics of contemporary American higher education, divisions within the natural and social sciences, and a high level of irrelevance. The ANT perspective argues that today's division of knowledge reflects the historical development of diverse and often conflicting networks of people and things associated with various departments and disciplines. These networks consist not only of disciplinarians, professional associations, and diverse client groups, but also include a wide range of physical objects such as laboratories, specialized instruments, money, and libraries. It shows how in fields such as agronomy new divisions have emerged in recent years and argues that the only way to dissolve the barriers between disciplines is to build counter networks between and among disciplines. (Contains 20 references.) (MDM)

For many students, the community college is the first and perhaps only place where technological and humanities instruction will be articulated. It is suggested that technology has never been far from the set of practices, usually academic, called "humanities" and the boundary between the two has long been unstable and contested. However, while technology is generally viewed as ideologically neutral, widespread business/education partnerships have imposed commercial and technological agendas and metaphors on education at the colleges. Confusion among humanities faculty over the issue has prevented a critique of commercial and technological ideologies dominant on many campuses. Partnerships with business are understandably attractive to education; the single most frequently cited benefit to such partnerships is that they provide new sources of funding. However, these partnerships also bring along such elements of the business agenda as a profit-obsessed consumerism, an alienating vocationalism, and a ruthless utilitarianism. Students become alternately the "customers" or the "products" of the business of education. This language is not particularly disturbing because it replaces humanist jargon with corporate jargon, but because it signifies the commoditization of learning. The humanities should not resort, however, to self-defensive assertions of vitality in terms of business culture or retreat to nostalgic exile. Instead, the humanities recuperated by a postmodern turn to critical, rhetorical, and historicist analysis, can expose the ideological underpinnings of consumer technoculture, rather than merely complaining about it or collaborating with it. (Contains 16 references.) (TGI)

Public relations sequence heads have the luxury of a strong and supportive foundation on which to build a program of instruction. The field has a rich collection of thinking and recommendations relating to public relations education. The Association for Education in Journalism (AEJ) and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) conducted a study in 1975 that arrived at the following conclusions: (1) a public relations program should include the arts, the humanities with special emphasis in communication and public relations; (2) a master's degree is highly desirable; (3) the program should be located in a school of journalism or communication; (4) 74% of the coursework should be in liberal arts and sciences and 25% in the major. The report was particularly hard on public relations educators, most of whom had no professional experience. A number of other studies, articles, and analyses arrived at similar conclusions including the 1987 AEJMC/PRSA study, the 1990 IPRA Gold Paper No. 7, the 1991 PRSA Task Force study, the 1992 Public Relations Journal Special Issue, and the Public Relations Professional Career Guide. The major shifts discerned in these studies are away from simple message preparation and towards managing relationships. Marketing and research were added as requirements in the late 1980s. Staff management became a priority in 1992. A year later, computer layout was seen as a requirement for entry-level practice. Finally, the IMC group added counseling to the list of skills necessary for modern practice. (Contains six tables, one figure, and eight references.) (TB)

It is indeed a problem, perhaps even a crisis, that many Americans are ignorant of "The Tempest," the Civil War, the location of the Persian Gulf, the Constitution, or the chief justice of the Supreme Court. However, if conservative humanists continue to ostracize, scorn, and ignore both media studies and the media themselves, the result will not be a return to the good old days when people read Homer and listened to Bach, but an even darker veil of ignorance, fostered for economic and political purposes by the very media that some humanists do not wish to understand. The crisis rhetoric of conservatives has about it the ring of both Chicken Little and of Nero fiddling. They emphasize "cultural literacy" while overlooking actual literacy. The problem of student illiteracy is a chronic problem with a long history, rather than a crisis. But the conservatives ignore real problems that have better claim to the word "crisis" than do such conservative worries as political correctness, radical professors, and the inability of students to quote Shakespeare. Conservative critics are also concerned with free speech issues, yet would deny academic freedom to scholars who disagree with them. They ridicule humanistic inquiry into music video, television, popular music, and film, condemning media studies and the academic freedom required to conduct such studies. Conservative critics' mistaken understanding of television and its history underscores the need for more, not less, media study. If the humanities have no use for the media, the globally monopolized media are certainly not going to have any use for the humanities. (Thirty-eight notes are included.) (RS)

According to the authors, the real conditions of poverty and homelessness in America remain obscure. The homeless, contrary to popular belief, are not homeless by choice. 25% of the homeless are employed full-time in low-wage jobs, 25% are war veterans of one kind or another, and 25% are emotionally disturbed. According to the Rand Corporation, the most powerful predictor of personal and professional failure among children in the United States is not test scores, parental income, or parental education levels, but poverty. This article contends that the radical traditions of humanities can create a context out of which the poor can reinvent themselves and eventually transcend their economic limitations. The authors delivered the Clemente Course in Humanities on Moral Philosophy and Literature, a course based on the work of Earl Shorris. The class was offered, through Valencia Community College, at two locations in Orlando, Florida. Some of the goals of the course are to nurture a discovery or rediscovery of unlimited potential in students, to move students from reactive to reflective thinking, to instill in students the advantages of negotiation over the use of force, to demonstrate the psychological benefits of working in a group, and to emphasize the importance of family involvement. (NB)

Although a degree in Professional and Technical Communication (PTC) is a "practical" degree, its hands-on nature does not preclude it from providing students with a sound liberal education. For one educator, those who major in professional/technical communication are better prepared to fill many of the jobs that are currently going to students majoring in traditional humanities programs. Unless traditional humanities majors wish to pursue a career in academia, many of them would be better served by the more user-centered PTC degree, "user-centered" meaning that students learn how to produce material--documents, Web pages, videos, interactive CDs and DVDs--for people who need to accomplish a task or learn more to make an informed decision. Technical communication can be seen as a hybrid form created from that traditional user-centered discipline called rhetoric and new technologies. Like their counterparts in humanities programs, PTC majors leave college with a sound education in writing and analytical thinking--two attributes that employers value highly. When PTC majors take philosophy and history classes in their own department they learn how technologies such as computers have influenced people's lives or how environmental degradation from mining has long term social consequences. Rather than a degree that trains students to be specialists in a particular software tool or documentation method, the PTC degree educates students in a broad appreciation of how to make difficult concepts or equipment understandable. The PTC degree trains students in the fine art of flexibility. (NKA)

This paper examines the controversy over the status and objectives of the social studies and suggests ways in which educators can resolve the controversy. In addition, it offers critical comments on several recent overviews of the field of social studies, including the "SPAN Report," by Irving Morrissett, Sharryl Hawke, and Douglas Superka, and "Defining the Social Studies," by Robert Barr, James Barth, and Sam Shermis. The major groups holding conflicting views which have to such a large degree fragmented the field of social studies are identified as advocates of back-to-basics, the psuedo-social science specialists, and the single-minded humanists. Arguments advanced by the first group recommend that schooling consist mainly of the basic subjects such as reading, writing, and arithmetic; the second group favors a heavy concentration of courses in history, geography, and civics/government; and people believing in the humanistic approach advocate basing the social studies curriculum on the humanities without proper regard for the social sciences. The conclusion is that the field of social studies will be improved if educators concentrate on a professional study of the foundations of social studies. The implication is that social studies would benefit if educators and, in particular, people who write about improving the field of social studies, would take the history of social studies into account and, specifically, if they would realize that social studies is a distinct field built on a tradition that borrows fully from social sciences and humanities. (DB)

Although several recent articles have addressed postmodernism in ethical terms, it is not difficult to see the perils facing anyone who wants to talk about ethics, since it is hard to justify certain practices over others. An individual cannot appeal to human needs or capacities, since these are said to be variously constructed by various discourse communities; a person cannot speak of ethical knowledge, because such talk is infected with objectivist rationality, said to be deadly in its own right. To the extent that an individual does any of these things while simultaneously promoting a postmodern epistemology, he or she is engaging in self-refutation and incoherence. Postmodernism is a notoriously imprecise term which emphasizes the situatedness of all knowledge claims and rejects the notion that theories match or fit reality in more or less accurate ways. For many postmodernists, truth does not exist, or if it does, limited human beings could never know it all. Postmodernism seems to demystify, while at the same time reject the idea that there is anything there to be demystified. The postmodern dichotomy between socially constructed knowledge and truth is a false dichotomy, taking the form of rhetoric or situatedness versus truth. So the postmodern ethical project seems doomed because it relies uncritically on false postmodern precepts and assumptions. Considering what is at stake, humanities scholars and teachers should think through the pitfalls of postmodernism and elaborate an epistemology and an ethics that is coherent and compatible with emancipatory aims. (Contains 16 references.) (CR)

Interdisciplinary studies attempt to bring together disparate areas such as English, history, and art into a common curriculum which crosses divisional boundaries. An interdisciplinary approach allows colleges to add to its course offerings without the expense of hiring new faculty, attracts new students and retains them at higher rates, provides opportunities for team teaching and faculty creativity, and overcomes faculty departmental isolation. In addition, it allows students to exercise creativity in the context of meeting broader academic goals and enriches the classroom through the broad base of knowledge and experience presented by the faculty team. Interdisciplinarism is especially timely now because of the current crisis of the humanities, in which they have become fragmented and have been called irrelevant, and is especially relevant to community colleges. Since many two-year college students do not continue with further studies, the interdisciplinary approach gives them a broad based educational experience. Despite the many positive effects of such programs, obstacles exist to their establishment, including struggles over subject matter turf and teachers' fears of having to draw on intellectual traditions outside their own. Perhaps the best approach to establishing a program is to follow the pattern of a successful effort from its inception to current operation. In the end, the benefits of establishing a program far outweigh the challenges, since it can create a community of learning between students and faculty. (Contains 46 references.) (KP)

Political correctness (PC) is often associated with attempts to place limits or boundaries on expressions of racist, sexist, or homophobic attitudes and feelings. PC is most often associated with such efforts on college and university campuses. Many critics of PC have attempted to suggest that these activities pose a great threat to American society. They suggest that PC is restrictive of opinion and free expression. The comments of Nat Hentoff are typical. He notes that "many white male students, faculty members and administrators are convinced that speech must have its limits if racism, sexism, and homophobia are to be extirpated in and out of the classroom." It would be naive, however, to assume that anti-PC criticism is a by-product of objective investigation. Much of the anti-PC rhetoric is a direct result of highly organized and well-funded campaigns by conservative elements. Further, virtually all of the evidence against PC consists of collections of anecdotes. There is no hard, quantitative data to prove the extent or impact of a PC "movement." Also, the sheer quantity of faculty engaged in higher education in this country suggests that political viewpoints are far more diverse than a PC norm. An objective examination of the status of PC on American campuses casts much doubt on the positions advanced by critics--it seems unlikely that there is much, if any, organized effort to program students with PC ideas. (Contains 60 footnotes.) (TB)

Science fiction is a literary genre that can be used in humanities courses to discuss ideas, attitudes, ethics, morality, and the effects of science and technology on the world's population. One of the best examples of a "classic" science fiction novel which can provoke class discussion is Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," written in 1932. In this novel the visionary Huxley addressed many of today's scientific and technological issues long before they manifested themselves. Huxley knew how to play on the human being's fear of dehumanization via the route of technology and rhetoric. In "Brave New World" all societal ills have been practically eliminated--it is a sad note that today's reality is, in many ways, worse than Huxley's fiction. The environmental depredation in the novel is better managed than in real life, and some ecological balance is maintained. In the real world of 1994, starvation, sectarian wars, overpopulation, and standardization of society are all problems. Sixty years ago Huxley issued a warning in the form of a disturbing yet entertaining story. (NKA)

Much of what teachers know about how to teach and how to conceptualize specific academic content is learned from their undergraduate professors. In 1990, California State University, Fullerton, received a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE), Project Teach, to improve the quality of instruction which prospective elementary school teachers experience in undergraduate academic coursework. Project Teach has engaged junior and senior faculty from three schools at the University (Human Development and Community Service, Humanities and Social Science, and Natural Science and Mathematics) in a discussion of effective teaching and of the relationship of their own teaching to the preparation of teachers. In this monograph, participants representing such diverse fields as child development, elementary education, health, physical education and recreation, psychology, English, political science, linguistics, anthropology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology explain their views of the teaching process through the use of metaphors and describe teaching strategies found to be effective in their own classes. (LL)

Twenty-five years ago a small volume of essays entitled "Crisis in the Humanities" was published containing an ominous message: namely, that the humanistic disciplines had arrived at a crossroad--a turning point at which a decisive change for better or worse was imminent. Humanistic scholarship appears to have declined since that crossroad was reached, and the reason may be that as pursued at present in many areas, it produces knowledge that is of little intrinsic interest and relevance. This essay formulates and addresses the question of how the humanities can be revitalized and vindicated. There are no simple solutions to this problem; what is needed is a new working concept on which humanistic scholarship can be based. Of theories put forward recently as conceptual frameworks for humanistic scholarship, none is more helpful than Karl Popper's proposition of a world of encoded or "objective" knowledge. Popper's proposition as it can be applied to humanistic scholarship is discussed with great optimism. Comments on the main essay by two other scholars, Michael T. Ryan and Thomas F. Staley, also are included in this volume. (DB)

Intellectual refinement and spiritual evaluation have been the traditional goals of the humanities and should remain so. If these aims are given up, then the noble endeavors in the humanities such as sustained reflection, intensive research, careful scholarship, inspired teaching, deep learning, and serious discussion will all become discredited and eventually disappear. The reason the term "humanities" seems meaningless is because the activities undertaken in its name no longer stand for a unified set of principles or a coherent body of knowledge. In the past the aim of humanities education was the cultivation of free men and women--freed from ignorance and callousness. Today, many people interpret cultivation or the aim of cultivation as an imposition of arbitrary standards, an obstacle to personal expression, or even a limitation on student freedom. In place of cultivation, "awareness" is advocated. Humanities education is no longer an introduction to or an immersion in the best thought and knowledge. It is, instead, a collection of disconnected and often eccentric areas of inquiry. It is, therefore, not surprising that the humanities have so much trouble evoking the enthusiasm of scholars and teachers, capturing the allegiance of students, and gaining the financial support of public and private institutions. It is the responsibility of every generation of scholars and teachers not only to maintain the tradition of the humanities, but to extend and refine this tradition through new ideas and works and to see that the humanities are studied in a coherent and serious way. (HOD)

The thesis of this paper is that the humanistic mode of inquiry is underemployed in evaluation studies and the future evaluation of Follow Through could profitably use humanistic approaches. The original Follow Through evaluation was based on the assumption that the world consists of a single system explainable by appropriate methods; the evaluation presumed that in the domain of early childhood education there exists an underlying internally consistent reality to be discovered. The evaluation foundered badly. An alternate method of evaluation is to deal with the world in terms of ordinary language and as it appears phenomenologically to individuals. This mode of investigation emphasizes experience as lived. Ways of investigating such experiences in a disciplined manner exist; these disciplines are called the humanities. Whereas science looks for causes, the humanities look for reasons. The essence of humanistic thought seems to be that human action is intelligible only when we see it through the eyes of the acting agent, only when we see why he would do what he did. Many of the features of humanistic inquiry can be seen in Zimiles and Mayer's (1980) study of the Bank Street Follow Through Project. (RH)

Skills and knowledge developed by undergraduate study of the humanities and the application of these skills to business careers are discussed. The humanities are chiefly verbal disciplines and offer vital career preparation wherever communication and human relations are important. The scrutiny of students' writing, which occurs in humanities courses, develops skills in logic, precision of expression, and the ability to persuade. Humanities studies, which include English and history, help students learn about how people act and think. Humanities majors not only develop skills in writing but also in reading. Humanities graduates have skills that are valuable to a range of unspecialized jobs (management, public relations, personnel, communications). Liberal arts colleges should find out about job opportunities and create more ties with diverse employers. Insufficient concern for introductory humanities courses by colleges and narrow teaching of advanced courses are criticized. Specific reference is made to issues concerning the study of English. Reasons that keep business from turning to the humanities to find their employees are largely related to the identification of subject matters in the university, the established relationships between college and business, and routes of access by which students move to business careers. (SW)

The benefits of studying the humanities to the business executive are considered. The humanities can help develop both the values and functional skills that are necessary for executive success. Competence in value analysis helps future executives to understand the full implications of the economic system, especially when it is followed by the study of microeconomics from a liberal arts perspective. The humanities, particularly philosophy and literature, can play a significant role in approaching value questions. Executive action requires a balance between creative and integrative abilities and execution and control responsibilities. Business curricula teach students to develop systems of control and execution through study of fields such as finance, production, marketing, and accounting. Certain business disciplines also develop skills in evaluating alternative strategies, structures, and technologies. Business subjects are comparatively weak in developing a facility for generating opportunities, exploring their full implications, and presenting choices to form a coherent strategy. Literary studies offer a broad spectrum of experience and skills that are significant for the creative and integrative dimensions of executive action. (SW)

A working definition of the humanities and characteristics of a liberally educated person are specified. The humanities embrace areas of human knowledge that possess these elements: central concern for human beings rather than for the processes of nature or the structures of society; primary focus on the individual rather than on the group; awareness of how we know what we know; attention to moral values, whether drawn from God, man, or nature; and insistence that the process of intellectual growth calls for forthright moral judgments as an equal partner with accurate descriptive knowledge. Study of the humanities yields a liberally educated person who: remains an active independent learner; stands on a system of values that demands the application of ethical concerns to action and that accepts the presence of alternate value systems in others; understands the cultural milieu of modern society; possesses skills in analysis and synthesis, critical thinking, reading, writing, and speaking; and welcomes productive work that calls for continually developing capacities and for flexibility in changing the direction of careers over a lifetime of work. Fields of study included in the humanities, as defined by the National Endowment for the Humanities, are identified. (SW)

The success of critical thinking courses poses a significant threat to the conception and status of the humanities. In an effort to remediate deficiencies in the writing and reading skills of students attempting to undertake college-level work, courses have been developed which aim to improve the cognitive skills needed for effective communication, understanding, and persuasion. In addition, philosophers have successfully introduced courses on critical thinking or informal logic into the curriculum, and have had them classified as philosophy courses applying to liberal arts degree requirements. While these courses are valuable additions to the curriculum, are perhaps the most appropriate way to involve students with the philosophic tradition, and are appropriately taught by philosophers within the philosophy department, they may not accomplish what philosophy and humanities requirements are meant to accomplish. In reviewing textbooks and course syllabi in the area of critical thinking, one is struck by the almost total absence of any reference to the classical tradition in philosophy. These courses, which are the only exposure to philosophy that most community college students will have, reduce the discipline to a set of intellectual skills--a methodology--and should not be used as a substitute for an introduction to philosophy course. While the critical thinking courses are responsive to the economic aspects of enrollment patterns and the immediate needs of students, they pay too little attention to past philosophic and cultural heritage and the long-term needs of both students and their civilization. If philosophers are to teach courses in critical thinking and applied ethics as a service to students with skill deficiencies, these courses should not be part of the liberal arts core or general education program, but rather of the technical or career portion of the curricular requirements. (LAL)