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If any liberal arts college was likely to step into the MOOC world, it would be one offering cross-listed courses with MIT, one of the founders of the MOOC provider EdX. This will be one to keep an eye on for small, elite liberal arts colleges like Kenyon. 

Thomas Carey argues that "depth vs. breadth" is an insufficient model for understanding the possible contributions of the liberal arts. (Plus, K is for Kenyon, that's good enough for me.)

Interesting attempt to measure the growth of professionally-oriented courses at liberal arts schools, and some good reporting to contextualize the changes.

Richard Detweiler's study correlates students' classroom experiences with their lifelong achievement of mission goals of liberal arts colleges.

"We need to rethink the pedagogical processes by which we get students to truly embrace difference." Lots to digest in this essay from Jose Bowen.

This article breaks down employers' complaints about "skills gaps" in college graduates, begins to draw some boundaries between the complaints that are relevant to higher education and those that are not, and offers some suggestions for helping liberal arts students to demonstrate the broader skills they have developed in the classroom over the course of their education.

"Technology is a part of our human experience, not a replacement to it."

This article analyzes the shift toward quantitative courses among students at liberal arts colleges.

"In my view, the way to defend the value of college is to defend the importance of intellectual virtues and then show that the education that colleges provide is successful at cultivating those virtues." Swarthmore psychologist Barry Schwartz gives an interesting list of the habits of mind which are the components of "critical thinking."

"When I first taught Intro­duc­tion to the Dig­i­tal Lib­eral Arts, I named it so in order to include projects going on in bio­chem­istry and the per­form­ing arts as well as those that fit the more tra­di­tional pro­file of DH, such as the­matic research col­lec­tions of writ­ers and his­tor­i­cal peri­ods. All of these fields are expe­ri­enc­ing changes due to the inno­v­a­tive use of tech­nol­ogy in both teach­ing and research, and all of them are par­tic­i­pat­ing in a com­mon move­ment that can­not be described as DH, even though the lat­ter is inti­mately con­nected with much of it."

A remarkably even-handed article which really does take the provocative title as a question. Design thinking might well provide a useful problem-solving mode for interdisciplinary efforts and curricular coherence.

Rick Detweiler, president of the GLCA, presented data on the outcomes of a liberal arts education at the recent meeting of AAC&U.

Jose Bowen, president of Goucher College and author of the book _Teaching Naked_, is starting a 5-part series on liberal arts education as the "degree of the future". In part one, I'd note the implied difference between "critical" and "creative" thinking.

A sketch of how liberal arts colleges foster learning through personal encounters, inquiry-rich campus culture, and research applied in the classroom.