The Liberal Arts in Higher Education: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Possibilities

by Diana Glyer, David L. Weeks, Gayle Beebe, Richard Christopherson, John Culp

Overview

The Liberal Arts in Higher Education launches an institutional effort to establish a shared definition and to clarify the contours of the liberal arts and liberal education by extending centuries-old dialogue to the coeducational, Christian campus of Azusa Pacific University. The book contains 'working' definitions of key terms, including: liberal arts, liberal education, trivium, quadrivium, liberalism, and general education and a cursory review of five paradigms of liberal education. It also presents a description of five perennial debates regarding liberal education: the relationship between moral and intellectual virtue, the disciplinary divide between the sciences and the humanities, the connection between professional and liberal education, and the postmodern challenge to traditional understandings of liberal education. Four original articles explore the scope and nature of liberal education, while ten critical reviews discuss some of the most quoted literature on the topic. These essays provide a philosophical assessment of the past and present nature of liberal education along with suggestions for how a Christian liberal education may be reimagined.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761811640
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	07/30/1998
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.99(w) x 9.01(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Diana Glyer is Associate Professor of English at Azusa Pacific University. David L. Weeks is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of History and Political Science at Azusa Pacific University.

Table of Contents

chapter 1 Introduction; The Classical Liberal Arts Tradition chapter 2 Modern and Postmodern Challenges to Liberal Education chapter 3 Integrating Liberal Arts and Professional Education chapter 4 Re-imagining a Distinctly Christian Liberal Arts Education chapter 5 John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University chapter 6 Robert M. Hutchin's The Higher Learning in America chapter 7 The Harvard Committee's General Education in a Free Society and the College of the University of Chicago's The Idea and Practice of General Education chapter 8 David Wagner's The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages chapter 9 Ernest L. Boyer and Arthur Levine's A Quest for Common Learning: The Aims of General Education chapter 10 Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind chapter 11 Gary E. Miller's The Meaning of General Education chapter 12 Jerry G. Gaff's New Life for the College Curriculum chapter 13 Charles Anderson's Prescribing the Life of the Mind chapter 14 Bruce Kimball's Orators and Philosophers and Robert Orrill's The Condition of American Liberal Education chapter 15 Bibliography chapter 16 Index