The past is the substance from which the present is formed, but college curricula based on this cultural heritage need not exclude the present. Major classical writers and social thinkers must be central to it but should be accompanied by critical engagement with living texts from powerful and active minds. (MSE)

Higher education can resist the need to open the U.S. mind to greater cultural diversity by ignoring the changing ethnic composition of student bodies and larger society, or realize this opportunity to revitalize the social sciences and humanities with a new sense of purpose and more inclusive definition of knowledge. (MSE)

Chronicles the process of reforming the liberal education program at Franklin Pierce College (New Hampshire), organized around the theme of the individual and community. Discusses objectives in integrating the "civic arts" into the core curriculum and challenges encountered in balancing "individual" and "community"…