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This article looks at the labour market outcomes of 2015 postsecondary graduates three years after graduation. Specifically, it examines their employment status, job permanency, relatedness of their job or business to their 2015 educational program, the degree to which graduates feel qualified for their job, their employment income and their job satisfaction. This article answers the question: How are graduates of 2015 faring in terms of their integration into the labour market?

Using data from the 2008 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, we show that study time and academic conscientiousness were lower among students in humanities and social science majors than among students in science and engineering majors. Analytical and critical thinking experiences were no more evident among humanities and social sciences majors than among science and engineering majors. All three academically beneficial experiences were, however, strongly related to participation in class and interaction with instructors, and participation was more common among humanities and social sciences students than among science and engineering students. Bok's (2006) influential discussion of "underachievement" in undergraduate education focused on institutional performance. Our findings indicate that future discussions should take into account differences among disciplinary categories and majors as well. (Contains 4 tables and 13 footnotes.)

With the tuition cost of traditional colleges and universities soaring and education technology advancing, online courses and degree programs are becoming more common. Some critics argue that an online degree cannot provide all the important features of a traditional college education, from extracurricular activities to new professional networks, but the evidence disputes much of that criticism, especially for certain groups of students. Indeed, some aspects of online education may provide a better experience than a traditional brick-and-mortar college for some students. (Contains 49 footnotes.)

In higher education in the United States, teaching and research in the fields of language and literature are in a desperate condition. Laboring on the age-old axiom "publish-or-perish," thousands of professors, lecturers, and graduate students are busy producing dissertations, books, essays, and reviews. Over the past five decades, their collective productivity has risen from 13,000 to 72,000 publications per year. But the audience for language and literature scholarship has diminished, with unit sales for books now hovering around 300. At the same time, the relations between teachers and students have declined. While 43 percent of two-year public college students and 29 percent of four-year public college students require remedial coursework, costing $2 billion annually, one national survey reports that 37 percent of first-year arts/humanities students "never" discuss course readings with teachers outside of class, and 41 percent only do so "sometimes." These trends are not unrelated. Academic engagement on the part of students is a reflection of how much teachers demand it. But with the research mandate hovering over them, teachers have no incentive to push it. If the system favors publication, not mentoring, hours in the office in conversation with sophomores are counter-productive or even damaging to career and livelihood. Universities need to reconsider the relative value placed on research and teaching in the evaluation of professors. This paper offers several recommendations, including limiting the amount of material that tenure committees will review and creating a "teacher track" in which doctoral students are trained and rewarded for generalist knowledge and multiple course facility rather than a highly-specialized expertise. A bibliography is included. (Contains 52 endnotes.)

This report describes a conversion experiment and subsequent reader survey conducted by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Humanities E-Book (HEB) in late 2009 and early 2010 to assess the viability of using scholarly monographs with handheld e-readers. As sample content, HEB selected six titles from its own online collection, three in a page-image format with existing OCR (optical character recognition)-derived text and three encoded as XML files, and had these converted by an outside vendor with minimal editorial intervention into both MOBI (prc) and ePub files. During its in-house assessment phase, HEB experienced some navigational difficulty with both formats and found that annotation and other interaction with the text was difficult using a number of popular e-readers. HEB also found the XML titles to be of limited functionality in the MOBI format and therefore opted not to further poll readers on this subset. About 88% of the 142 survey participants expressed overall satisfaction with the appearance and functionality of the three remaining handheld samples, although roughly half reported some level of frustration with the search function using either format, and only 26% felt they would have an easy time citing and referencing these editions. Satisfaction with other interactive features, such as adding notes, bookmarking and highlighting, was noticeably higher; however, the "n/a" option was also selected frequently for these categories, and it appears that a large number of participants were unable to perform the tasks in question due to confusing or insufficient instructions from the device manufacturer. As formats evolve, future satisfaction with these features may increase. Irrespective of specific limitations, 75% of participants were interested in potentially downloading additional similar titles for free or if priced below $10. HEB's initial findings in this study indicate that titles formatted for existing handheld devices are not yet adequate for scholarly use in terms of replicating either the benefits of online collections--cross-searchability, archiving, multifarious interactive components--nor certain aspects of print editions that users reported missing, such as being able to mark up and rapidly skim text. A turnaround is underway once a common and more robust format optimized for handheld readers is determined and devices themselves evolve, adding improved display options and better and more intuitive web-access, searching and other interactive use of content. Survey Results is appended. (Contains 30 footnotes.)

This paper seeks evidence of a culture gulf, first voiced by C.P. Snow in 1959, between science and humanities as reflected in the understanding which undergraduate science and humanities majors have of the other field. The 1995 study evaluated responses of students at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and California's Humboldt State University (HSU) to the College Student Experiences Questionnaire, which measures both general cognitive outcomes and personal/social outcomes. The study found some differences between science and humanities majors, although not as great as those reflected in Snow's study of eminent physical scientists and literary intellectuals. The study did find that science majors reported greater progress in analytical skills while humanities majors report greater progress in interpersonal skills. These differences were consistently greater at UCLA than at HSU. The data examining these differences, using Holland's (1959) theory of vocational choice, suggest that they may be the result of institutional environment and context. (Contains 8 references.) (CH)

This paper is divided into two parts. The first part, "Speaking Pictures and Visual Poems," briefly considers the origin of the term "sister arts." Discussed are the three main features of the historical relationship between painting and literature in the 18th and 19th centuries in Britain and draws out their educational implications. Part 2, "Teaching the Sister Arts," deals more explicitly with teaching. Examples of recent "pairs" of paintings and poems are discussed in which can be observed both the poets' responses to their chosen paintings and some students' responses to a painting and a poem it inspired. The paper concludes with a brief comment on the pedagogical benefits that can accrue from working with such materials and methods which, by their name, define the role of the collaborative reader of two interrelated art forms. (EH)

This report surveys the various applications of information technology to research in the humanities and examines challenges that need to be overcome. The document is divided into five sections. The first section provides a background on changes brought on by technology in the humanities. The second section focuses on information technology and scholarship. Topics include: electronic communication; text; data; images; sound; combined sources/multimedia/World Wide Web; retroconversion projects; original and creative works; electronic publication; and tools. A summary of computer applications in humanities research and future outlook are included at the end of this section. New developments and change are discusses in the third section. The fourth section outlines institutional changes that are necessary to enable effective technology use in humanities scholarship. Topics include: training and support; project management; research infrastructure; digital libraries and archives; information resources; regulatory issues; preservation and access; funding; and humanities support services. The fifth section makes recommendations and lists priorities for humanists, technical experts, librarians, and administrators. Appendices in the final section include acknowledgments, bibliographies, and abbreviations and acronyms. (Contains 37 references.) (AEF)

This annotated bibliography of 70 items was developed as part of a larger research project on the possible application of competency-based approaches to generalist courses (arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences) in higher education. The project also looked at other ways, aside from the use of competency-based approaches, of improving the relationship between higher education and research. The bibliography's main focus is on academic and policy-related literature from Australia and Great Britain, with some material from the United States, Japan, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Extensive abstracts are provided for most citations which are listed alphabetically by author. The literature abstracts cover research, mainly from the 1990s, on the transition from generalist courses to work; academic understandings of generic skills; employer selection practices and requirements of graduates; employer understandings of skills; the debate about competency-based reform; and material in related areas such as the debate about the university, the humanities, and the role of careers advisers. The bibliography provides a summary of the field in Australia as of early 1993. (Author/GLR)

This proceedings report contains 6 of the 12 papers presented at a conference on the social role of the community college. First, information on the event, a conference program, an ERIC bibliography, and opening remarks by Richard M. Romano, conference coordinator, are presented. Next, the following papers are reproduced: (1) "Community Colleges, Community and Regional Development, and the Concept of Communiversity," by S. V. Martorana; (2) "Determining the Economic Returns on Investment in Selected Occupational Educational Programs," by Edward Mills; (3) "An Economic Perspective on Financing the Community College," by Gary A. Moore; (4) "Mission and Images for SUNY [State University of New York] Community Colleges: A View from Within," by Barbara K. Townsend and responding comments by Gene Grabiner; (5) "The Humanities and the New Student: Some Possibilities for Social Transformation," by L. Steven Zwerling; and (6) SUNY's "Report of the Chancellor's Task Force on Community Colleges," which examines and offers recommendations concerning goverance, ties and relationships between community colleges and SUNY state-operated colleges, academic and general programmatic issues, and funding. (LAL)

This paper reports the results of a study of two-year college faculty relative to Functional Potential (FP), a personality variable forming the core of a model of the person, which describes the degree to which a person is able to tolerate ambiguity, delay gratification, exhibit adaptive flexibility, demonstrate goal directedness, relate to self and others, and have a clear sense of personal identity. Subjects of the study were 1,493 two-year college humanities faculty, representing a nationwide sample. Based on responses to specific survey items, respondents were assigned to either high, medium, or low FP groups. Results showed that more people in the high FP group tend to become involved in activities, are more concerned about students and faculty, and are more related. Statistically significant associations were found between the FP groups and Research Orientation, Curriculum/Instruction, University as a Reference Group, Preference for Further Preparation, Concern for Students, and Concern for the Humanities. For a control group of 505 non-humanities faculty, significant associations pertain to FP and Satisfaction, Research Orientation, Curriculum/Instruction, Concern for Students, and Concern for the Humanities. Because of notable differences between high and low FP groups in certain areas, it is felt that the hypothesis of FP as a basic and almost pervasive personality dimension holds clearly. (Author/JDS)

This paper reports the results of a study designed to answer questions regarding job satisfaction among two-year college faculty and its relationship to common demographic variables. Respondents to a nationwide survey of 1,493 humanities faculty and 505 non-humanities faculty in 156 two-year colleges were grouped into high, medium, or low satisfaction groups, based on responses to certain questionnaire items which allowed construction of a Satisfaction Index. Among the findings of the study with regard to humanities faculty were: (1) ethnicity and satisfaction seem unrelated, although age is related; (2) sex has little bearing on degree of satisfaction; (3) very little difference exists between full- and part-time faculty relative to satisfaction; and (4) more members of high satisfaction groups are found in public colleges, fewer in private institutions. Study findings with regard to non-humanities faculty are also reported and discussed. It is suggested that the construct of satisfaction is a function of the person (personality correlate) as much or perhaps to a greater degree than it is a reaction to the work place (situational response). A review of the literature on job satisfaction and a bibliography are included. (Author/JDS)

A human society that aspires to more than survival must search continuously for new knowledge; we are all the beneficiaries of the scholar's insatiable desire to know. Graduate study must be nurtured, and cannot ever be the sole preoccupation of academe. Today the crucial balance of things and humans is threatened by the erosion of support for and interest in graduate study of the humanities. The professions, such as medicine, are turning more and more to the humanities as part of professional study, seeking three things the humanities can uniquely contribute to human endeavor: (1) to serve as preferred vehicles for teaching the liberal arts; (2) to provide sources of knowledge not susceptible to scientific method; and (3) to enrich the lives of humans as humans. It is important to reassert these seemingly obvious uses of the humanities, even for the humanists. The liberal arts are indispensable to the survival of democratic societies, which survive on the strength of their citizens who possess a critical intelligence. As a result of changes external and internal to the humanities, humanists have retreated too swiftly before the popularity and successes of the sciences and the professions. Scholarship and research do not exhaust the value of the humanities to society, and it is the university's responsibility to prepare humanists who can cultivate the closer engagement of the humanities with practical affairs. (MSE)

Designed to serve as a record of the initial public activity of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Program in Humanities Curriculum Development, this collection of three articles offers different perspectives on the humanities in the schools. In the first article, "The Humanities and Public Education," Stanley N. Katz discusses the need to determine how the humanities can increase the range of knowledge necessary to the intellectual development and social acculturation of young people from elementary through university education and how some of the new humanities research and teaching techniques can be made to work for school teachers. In the second article, "Cultural Equity," Henry Louis Gates, Jr. conveys the message that an equilibrium needs to be established between an untenable celebration of diversity and monochrome homogeneity. Although no guarantee exists, Gates proposes that the mistake would be not to try. A question and answer segment follows his paper. The final article, "The Women's Studies Movement," by Catherine R. Stimpson, describes women's studies as a pioneer in multicultural research, teaching, and governance in its exploration of divisive differences. A question and answer segment appears after the article. The agenda for the August 31-September 2, 1992 American Council of Learned Societies Conference as well as lists of speakers and advisory board members conclude the document. Attached to the main document is "ACLS Education Newsletter, volume 1, number 2, Summer 1993." It contains program site news from Cambridge-Brookline (Massachusetts), San Diego (California), Los Angeles (California), and Minneapolis (Minnesota) for the ACLS Program in Humanities Curriculum Development. (CK)

As enrollment in transfer programs and the relative number of students who transfer to four-year institutions decrease, transfer education is losing its preeminence as the principal function of the community college. From 1907 to 1940, transfer education comprised 60-70% of enrollment and maintained its preeminence through the mid 1960's. By 1973, however, its share of total enrollment dropped to 43%. Although college and state board studies rarely explore the question of the ideal percentage of transfers, they do indicate that the growth rate for transfers has been lower than that for enrollment and that full-time students are more likely to enroll in transfer programs than part-timers. Therefore, states with a high proportion of part-time students, as well as low selective admission policies and large minority populations, will have a lower percentage of transfer students. Other forces detrimental to transfer education are: (1) the increasing demand for vocational education, (2) the growth of new curricular functions such as continuing education, (3) the need to provide remedial education, (4) the competition for students with four-year institutions, and (5) the aging of the student body. However, the reluctance of educators to break their ties with higher education and the increased demands for improved humanities curricula will assure transfer education a vital, though smaller, role at the community college. (JP)