Although many appeals for reform include adopting more student-centred assessment, few studies have examined the postsecondary classroom. Using the 1993 and 1999 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, the results of the current study revealed that faculty in the sciences were less likely to use student-centred assessment practices than faculty…

This article explores how online pathfinders can best meet the information needs of graduate students and foster advanced research. The article reviews the literature on pathfinders, including the historic characteristics of print pathfinders, and the recommendations that have emerged for online pathfinder content. The article explores the…

In this article, the author contends that the vast majority of American historians no longer regard American culture--whether high culture or mainstream popular culture--as an essential area of study. The much-vaunted culture turn in the humanities has run its course in one of the first disciplines it influenced. Indeed, most of the books today…

Dr. Deirdre Burke is a Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton's School of Humanities, Languages and Social Sciences, specializing in religious and genocide studies. She was a 2005 National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy that recognized and rewarded her individual excellence in teaching in higher…

This is a unique and groundbreaking collection of questions and answers coming from higher education institutions on diverse fields and across a wide spectrum of countries and cultures. It creates routes for further innovation, collaboration amidst the Sciences (both Natural and Social) and the Humanities and the private and the public sectors of…

Although fiction plays a prominent role in the interdisciplinary field of medical humanities (MH), it is physically and intellectually isolated from non-fiction in academic health sciences libraries. Using the Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database (LAMD) as a tool for selection and subject analysis, we suggest a method of integrating fiction…

This article represents a consideration of the proposal by Michael Peters that peer review should be democratically extended. It begins by tracing the struggle between the natural sciences (the Quadrivium) and the humanities (the Trivium) in the medieval university to the present day, concluding that the Quadrivium has established a decisive…

This article addresses the complex issue of lecturers' subject knowledge and teaching. It explores the subject knowledge models of Banks, Leach and Moon (expressed in their chapter "New understandings of teachers' pedagogic knowledge", in J. Leach and B. Moon's edited work "Learners and Pedagogy," 1999) and of Grossman, Wilson…

What are the humanities, and how should they be cultivated? With respect to this crucial question, opinions differ as to how widely the humanities should be construed and pursued. Initially connoting the study of Greek and Roman classics, the concept now more generally covers arts and letters, history, and philosophy. But does it also include the…

This paper argues that the current debate over humanities curricula has failed to articulate a vision for humanities education because it has turned on a liberal/conservative axis. It also contends that educators must stop debating elite versus democratic values or traditional versus contemporary problems in humanities education, and start…

A series of articles and essay reviews are represented on issues of concern in humanities education. First, Benjamin DeMott's "A Moral Argument for the Humanities" asserts that humanities instruction should stress certain moral questions, such as the connection of moral life with civilization, individual responsibility, and institutions.…

Designed as a forum for views on issues concerning the humanities in two-year colleges, this journal begins with "A Call for Common Learning," in which Ernest Boyer discusses the goals of education and outlines six themes which students should study to understand themselves, their society, and the world in which they live. Responding to…

TO TEST THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A CURRICULUM GUIDE TO BE USED AS THE BASIS FOR HUMANITIES COURSES, THE PENNSYLVANIA HUMANITIES COMMISSION ENCOURAGED VOLUNTARY AND SELF-DIRECTIVE PILOT STUDIES IN 10 SCHOOLS DURING 1965-66. CLASSROOM SESSIONS WERE OBSERVED AND SCHOOL PRINCIPALS, HUMANITIES TEACHERS, AND SMALL GROUP OF PARTICIPATING STUDENTS WERE…

Recent trends towards viewing education only in terms of immediate and measurable results and current conditions that are increasing expenditures and lessening income have resulted in a decreased demand for humanities instruction at community colleges. Despite these trends, humanities courses must be blended with vocational curricula, not to…

Focusing on the decline of history curriculum in the community college, the author compared the types of history courses offered and their frequency (class sections), the relationship of offerings to all other humanities studies, and the strength of areas within history. A subsample of 182 institutions was drawn from a 15% national sample of all…