Grants Library

Michael S. Roth

Liberal education is under siege today. While some scramble to hold on to liberal arts traditions in the face of online instruction, others contend these traditions do little to prepare students for the high-tech jobs of the twenty-first century. The author argues that this is at heart a debate as old as America itself. From Benjamin Franklin to Internet pundits, critics of higher education have attacked its alleged irrelevance and elitism – often calling for more vocational instruction. Liberal education matters to us today, because it increases our capacity to understand and reshape the world far beyond the university. By examining thinkers from Thomas Jefferson to Richard Rorty, Roth shows that a broad, self-critical, and pragmatic education – a liberal education – has, since the founding of the nation, cultivated individual freedom, promulgated civic virtue, and instilled hope for the future.

Committee on Integrating Higher Education in the Arts, Humanities, Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
David Skorton and Ashley Bear, Editors

The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education examines the evidence behind the assertion that educational programs that mutually integrate learning experiences in the humanities and arts with science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) lead to improved educational and career outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students. It explores evidence regarding the value of integrating more STEMM curricula and labs into the academic programs of students majoring in the humanities and arts and evidence regarding the value of integrating curricula and experiences in the arts and humanities into college and university STEMM education programs.

The Council on Undergraduate Research
Naomi Yavneh Klos, Jenny Olin Shanahan and Gregory Young, Editors

Creative Inquiry in the Arts & Humanities aims to assist faculty and administrators of any academic discipline who are creating undergraduate research opportunities that move beyond the natural and social sciences, as well as those working to sustain well-established, multidisciplinary programs. It offers examples of successful programs, assignments, curricula, journals, and conferences that support the research, scholarship, and creative activity of students in the arts and humanities disciplines. Those examples cover a diversity of students’ scholarly and creative work, including individual and collaborative writing, oral presentations, works of visual arts, scholarly compilations, exhibits, musical compositions, plays, performances, public scholarship, and publications in many different forms.

Nathan D. Grawe

In Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, Nathan D. Grawe has developed the Higher Education Demand Index (HEDI), which relies on data from the 2002 Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) to estimate the probability of college-going using basic demographic variables. Analyzing demand forecasts by institution type and rank while disaggregating by demographic groups, Grawe provides separate forecasts for two-year colleges, elite institutions, and everything in between. The future demand for college attendance, he argues, depends critically on institution type. While many schools face painful contractions, for example, demand for elite schools is expected to grow by more than 15 percent in future years.

National Research Council; Committee on the Status, Contributions, and Future Directions of Discipline-Based Education Research
Susan R. Singer, Natalie R. Nielsen, and Heidi A. Schweingruber, Editors

Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) synthesizes empirical research on undergraduate teaching and learning in physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, the geosciences, and astronomy. It examines the extent to which this research currently influences instruction, and it describes the intellectual and material resources that are needed to further develop DBER. This book is a useful resource not only for scholars in DBER but also for faculty who seek to understand the research behind effective instruction and disciplinary societies that promote DBER and effective instruction. It will also be of value to government agencies and foundations that support research and learning in the sciences and engineering.

Arthur Levine and Diane R. Dean

Generation on a Tightrope offers a compelling portrait of today’s undergraduate college students that sheds light on their attributes, expectations, aspirations, academics, attitudes, values, beliefs, social lives and politics. Based on research of 5,000 college students and student affairs practitioners from 270 diverse college campuses, the book explores the similarities and differences between today’s generation of students and previous generations. Painting a realistic picture of today’s college students, the authors offer guidance to higher education professionals, researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, employers, parents, and the public.

Council on Undergraduate Research
Iain Crawford, Sara E. Orel, Jenny Olin Shanahan

This book is designed for faculty members and administrators hoping to develop opportunities for undergraduate research, scholarship, and creative work in the arts and humanities. Since the scholarly norms, definitions of research, and roles of collaboration and individual study are distinct in the arts and humanities from those in the sciences, the book contributes new ideas for meaningful student participation in the scholarship of these disciplines and for ways in which that participation can connect effectively with faculty work. Written by faculty members with long experience working with undergraduates, the book’s eleven chapters offer models of successful practice in a wide range of disciplines and cross-disciplinary programs. Providing a practical, hands-on guide to faculty and administrators hoping to develop programs in undergraduate research in the arts and humanities, the book also argues for the broader value of making undergraduate research an integral part of teaching and learning in these disciplines.

Victor E. Ferrall, Jr.

Liberal arts colleges represent a tiny portion of the higher education market. Yet they produce a stunningly large percentage of America’s leaders in virtually every field of endeavor. The educational experience they offer – small classes led by professors devoted to teaching and mentoring, in a community dedicated to learning – has been a uniquely American higher education ideal. Liberal Arts at the Brink is a wake-up call for everyone who values liberal arts education. Ferrall shows how a spiraling demand for career-related education has pressured liberal arts colleges to become vocational, distorting their mission and core values. Despite the daunting realities, he makes a spirited case for the unique benefits of the education they offer – to students and to the nation.

William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin

Locus of Authority argues that every issue facing today’s colleges and universities, from stagnant degree completion rates to worrisome cost increases, is exacerbated by a century-old system of governance that desperately requires change. While prior studies have focused on boards of trustees and presidents, few have looked at the place of faculty within the governance system. Specifically addressing faculty roles in this structure, the authors ask: do higher education institutions have what it takes to reform from within? Using case studies, the authors examine how faculty roles have evolved since colonial days to drive change but also to stand in the way of it. They make the case that successful reform depends on the artful consideration of technological, financial, and cultural developments, such as the explosion in online learning. Stressing they do not want to diminish faculty roles, Bowen and Tobin explore whether departments remain the best ways through which to organize decision making and if the concepts of academic freedom and shared governance need to be sharpened and redefined.

Louis Menand

In this book, Menand argues that although the demographics, the mission, and the scale of American higher education have all changed dramatically, its institutional structure and educational philosophy have remained relatively static for the last hundred years. In examining the origins of the university in the nineteenth century, and how it evolved in the twentieth, the author uncovers the anachronisms and anomalies in twenty-first-century higher education, and separates what is worth preserving from what we might be better off without. Along the way, the author explains when the liberal arts became segregated from professional education, how general education programs developed in response to social change and world events, and why ‘interdisciplinary’ has become the buzzword among professors, deans and graduate students.

Rebecca Chopp, Susan Frost, and Daniel H. Weiss (editors)

Remaking College brings together a distinguished group of higher education leaders to define the American liberal arts model, to describe the challenges these institutions face, and to propose sustainable solutions. This compilation of essays elucidate the shifting economic and financial models for liberal arts colleges and consider the opportunities afforded by technology, globalism, and intercollegiate cooperative models. By exploring new ideas, offering bold proposals, and identifying emerging lessons, the authors consider the unique position these schools can play in their communities and in the larger world.

Nancy Kober

Reaching Students presents the best thinking to date on teaching and learning undergraduate science and engineering. Focusing on the disciplines of astronomy, biology, chemistry, engineering, geosciences, and physics, this book is an introduction to strategies to try in your classroom or institution. Concrete examples and case studies illustrate how experienced instructors and leaders have applied evidence-based approaches to address student needs, encouraged the use of effective techniques within a department or an institution, and address the challenges that arose along the way.

Alan Siegel and Irene Etzkorn

In SIMPLE, the authors show us how having empathy, striving for clarity, and distilling your message can reduce the distance between company and customer, hospital and patient, government and citizen – and increase your bottom line. Examining the best and worst practices of an array of organizations big and small – the authors recast simplicity as a mindset, a design aesthetic, and a writing technique. By exposing the overly complex things we encounter every day, this insightful book reveals the reasons we allow confusion to persist, inspires us to seek clarity, and explores how social media is empowering consumers to demand simplicity.