Many in higher education fear that the humanities are facing a crisis. But even if the rhetoric about “crisis” is overblown, humanities departments do face increasing pressure from administrators, politicians, parents, and students. In A New Deal for the Humanities, Gordon Hutner and Feisal G. Mohamed bring together twelve prominent scholars who address the history, the present state, and the future direction of the humanities. These scholars keep the focus on public higher education, for it is in our state schools that the liberal arts are taught to the greatest numbers and where their neglect would be most damaging for the nation. The contributors offer spirited and thought-provoking debates on a diverse range of topics. For instance, they deplore the push by administrations to narrow learning into quantifiable outcomes as well as the demands of state governments for more practical, usable training. Indeed, for those who suggest that a college education should be “practical”—that it should lean toward the sciences and engineering, where the high-paying jobs are—this book points out that while a few nations produce as many technicians as the United States does, America is still renowned worldwide for its innovation and creativity, skills taught most effectively in the humanities. Most importantly, the essays in this collection examine ways to make the humanities even more effective, such as offering a broader array of options than the traditional major/minor scheme, options that combine a student’s professional and intellectual interests, like the new medical humanities programs. A democracy can only be as energetic as the minds of its citizens, and the questions fundamental to the humanities are also fundamental to a thoughtful life. A New Deal for the Humanities takes an intrepid step in making the humanities—and our citizens—even stronger in the future.
This series of interlinked essays takes the form of historical 'voyages' around the Victorian intellectual John Henry Newman, and Newman's classic work The Idea of a University, as well as changes in the structure and culture of universities which occurred in Newman's lifetime. The voyages connect nineteenth- and twentieth-century university history, mainly in Britain and the United States but with side excursions to continental Europe. Among the many important topics discussed are the history of student communities in Oxford and Cambridge, the growth of a modern examinations culture, university architecture and the use of space in connection with educational ideals, urbanism and universities, and the competition of states, markets and academic guilds for the control of universities and the right to define the missions of university professors.
The conflict between access and quality in education has been front-page news for decades. Policies regarding the role of elite universities, the organisation of secondary education, admissions criteria, courses of study, high stakes testing, and fiscal and programme accountability have changed with uncommon frequency, resulting in confusion and uncertainty. Yet it is the argument of this book that the tension between access to education and the preservation of quality is another chapter in the much longer history of merit selection in England, Scotland and America, and should be seen in its proper contexts. The underlying cause of the difficulties, however, is the dilemma created by two competing conceptions of virtue, one determined by merit judged competitively and the other more vaguely but emotionally supported by a broader view of worth. Merit is consistent with liberal democracy, but worth is the special province of social democracy. None of the distinctions is easily categorised by political party or ideology. They are the result of opposite moral impulses inherent in plural democratic societies undergoing the strains of internal and global competition.
The conflict between access and quality in education has been front-page news for decades. Policies regarding the role of elite universities, the organisation of secondary education, admissions criteria, courses of study, high stakes testing, and fiscal and programme accountability have changed with uncommon frequency, resulting in confusion and uncertainty. Yet it is the argument of this book that the tension between access to education and the preservation of quality is another chapter in the much longer history of merit selection in England, Scotland and America, and should be seen in its proper contexts. The underlying cause of the difficulties, however, is the dilemma created by two competing conceptions of virtue, one determined by merit judged competitively and the other more vaguely but emotionally supported by a broader view of worth. Merit is consistent with liberal democracy, but worth is the special province of social democracy. None of the distinctions is easily categorised by political party or ideology. They are the result of opposite moral impulses inherent in plural democratic societies undergoing the strains of internal and global competition.
Here it is my 83rd year, and an opportune time to write my memoir. I retired from teaching a short while ago and decided to initiate my retirement with a memoir reliving my life from my earliest memories onward. This is not the first time for writing my life story. Previously I wrote three autobiographies as school assignments....
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