As the College of Arts and Sciences embarks upon a strategic planning process and contemplates its future, I thought it would be helpful to share articles, books, thought-pieces, blog posts, etc. on higher education that I have found to be enlightening and/or provocative. (This was one of my New Year’s resolutions.)
A recurring theme in these posts will be the future of the liberal arts in higher education and at Seton Hall. As I have said publicly on numerous occasions, it is important that we speak confidently and unapologetically about the importance of a liberal education–an education that fosters critical thinking, creativity, human flourishing, and the common good–without simply “preaching to the choir.” Quite bluntly, we need to a better job of explaining what we do and why ot is relevant.
For this inaugural blog post, I’m linking to two articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education that encourage us to think differently about thinking:
- Can Design Thinking Redesign Higher Ed? posits “design thinking” as an alternative way of doing our collective work as academics, more suited to innovation and problem-solving than the usual meetings. Google “sprint,” anyone?
- A New Liberal Art: How systems thinking prepares students for a complex world suggests that understanding how complex systems work (and fail) is the new “killer app” in higher ed.
(Articles are behind a firewall and require either a SHU IP address or that you log in with your SHU credentials.)
Comments are welcome…