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Even though the 2012 NAICU Annual Meeting is history, you can continue to benefit and learn from the many presentations and speeches that were offered, and are now available on line.
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Liberal Arts/Humanities
Pep Talks and Pain Points
Inside Higher Ed
January 6, 2012Two separate but related themes are dominating this week's meeting of presidents of the mostly small private institutions that make up the Council of Independent Colleges. An impassioned opening speech by Nannerl O. Keohane, former president of Duke University and Wellesley College, represented the cheerleading part of what associations and other groups often do for their members. The second role that higher ed groups often play - exemplified by a workshop given by two experts on higher education finance - is more akin to a parent giving a reluctant child his or her medicine.
For Small-College Presidents, Advice on Budgets and Bully Pulpits
Chronicle of Higher Education
January 5, 2012The 345 college presidents at the Council of Independent Colleges' annual Presidents Institute heard from Ronald G. Ehrenberg, a finance guru, who noted that the many financial and political challenges now converging on higher education can also open up opportunities for small colleges. Nannerl O. Keohane, the former president of both Wellesley College and Duke University, kicked off the Presidents Institute with an impassioned address on the value of a liberal-arts education and the ways presidents could champion it.
How Art History Majors Power the U.S. Economy
Bloomberg Views - Column
January 5, 2012In a recent column for Real Clear Markets, Bill Frezza of the Competitive Enterprise Institute lauded the Chinese government's policy of cutting financing for any educational program for which 60 percent of graduates can't find work within two years. His assumption is that, because of government education subsidies, the U.S. is full of liberal-arts programs that couldn't meet that test. There are many problems with this simplistic prescription, but the most basic is that it ignores what American college students actually study.
What’s a College Major Worth?
Chronicle of Higher Education - Commentary
January 4, 2012Ever since I read about the Chinese Ministry of Education's decision to phase out college majors that don't give graduates marketable skills, I've been pondering the parallels between China's higher ed headaches and those of the United States. There has for some time been a marked separation in this country between two visions of college education. The first expects that undergraduates will acquire an important knowledge base and analytical habits of mind. The second sees particular value in the pursuit of labor market credentials in, say, crop science or accounting. These two approaches need not be irrevocably opposed.
Why aren't universities teaching critical thinking?
Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas - Opinion Piece
January 1, 2012Frederick G. Slabach, president, Texas Wesleyan University, writes: There is a consensus that the best way for undergraduate students to learn to think and reason is through frequent written and oral communication assignments accompanied by significant faculty feedback. Once upon a time in America, all college students received this kind of education. But no longer. Lectures are adequate for transferring information from one person to another, but they are inadequate, on their own, to help students develop higher-order thinking skills.
Funding Students, Threatening Liberal Education
Inside Higher Ed - Opinion Piece
December 20, 2011Last year, as Washington State faced a severe budget crisis, legislators embraced a novel way to fund student financial aid: a public-private partnership between the state and private corporations. Called the Opportunity Scholarship Fund, the fund attracts private donations and matches them with public money in order to support students in science, technology, and other "high demand" fields.
Advancing the Liberal Arts in and Beyond the Classroom
Huffington Post - Opinion Piece
December 19, 2011Why does this false dichotomy between the liberal arts and careerism endure, and who is perpetuating it? When unemployment abounds, parents, guidance counselors and even college admissions officers too often conflate a major with a permanent career. Students know better; they talk to their peers who tell them that a physics or photography major is not forever a physicist or a photographer. In today's economy, both may find themselves as budding entrepreneurs.
A Liberal Education: Preparation for Career Success
Huffington Post - Opinion Piece
December 6, 2011Lots of self-help books, pundits and well-intentioned family, friends and advisors encourage college students to "major in something practical." But as someone who spent many years assessing the skills and talents of management prospects for a wide range of disciplines and industries, I know that the candidates who were the most attractive manager prospects were those with a well-exercised mind, leadership potential, and the passion to make a difference. These success factors can be cultivated in many ways, but all are best developed by taking courses in the liberal arts and sciences.
In defense of a liberal education
Washington Post College Inc. Blog - Guest Post
December 2, 2011Christopher Nelson, president, St. John's College in Annapolis, writes: Students headed for college are worried that they may not find employment when they graduate. Specialized career training at the undergraduate level might thus seem to have appeal. And yet, study after study suggests that the best preparation for the workforce of tomorrow, for the jobs that have yet to be created, is a liberal education -- the kind of education most especially found at the small residential liberal arts colleges across the country.
Colleges defend humanities amid tight budgets
Associated Press
November 26, 2011Humanities studies peaked in U.S. colleges in the 1960s and started dwindling in the 1970s as more students pursued business and technology and related fields. Today, more than 20 percent of each year's bachelor's degrees are granted in business; in humanities, it's about 8 percent. Liberal arts colleges, too, have declined. A study published in 2009 by Inside Higher Ed said that of 212 liberal arts colleges identified in 1990, only 137 were still operating by 2009.
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