Useful Resources

Bibliography on General Education Reform for PLU:

Useful Readings on Higher Education and the General Education Curriculum

Boyer, Ernest L. & Levine, Arthur. A Quest for Common Learning: The aims of General Education. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1981.

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Campus Life: In Search of Community. Princeton, N.J.: The Foundation, 1990.

Gaff, Jerry G., Ratcliff, James L., & Associates. Handbook of the Undergraduate Curriculum: A Comprehensive Guide to Purposes, Structures, Practices, and Change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Greater Expectations National Panel. Greater Expectations: A New Vision for Learning as a Nation Goes to College. Washington, D.C.: AAC&U, 2002.

Hofstadter, Richard. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New York: Vintage Books, 1963.

Kimball, Bruce. Orators & Philosophers: A History of the Idea of Liberal Education. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1986.

Kimball, Bruce. The “True Professional Ideal” in America. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.

McMillin, Linda & Berberet, Jerry, Ed. A New Academic Compact: Revisioning the Relationship Between Faculty and their Institutions. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, 2002.

O’Meara, KerryAnn & Rice, Eugene R., Ed. Faculty Priorities Reconsidered: Rewarding Multiple Forms of Scholarship. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005.

Rice, R. Eugene. Making a Place for the New American Scholar. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1996.

Rothblatt, Sheldon. The Modern University and its Discontents: The Fate of Newman’s Legacies in Britain and America. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Rudolph, Frederick. Curriculum: A History of the American Course of Study since 1636. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1977.

Tagg, John. Learning Paradigm College. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, 2003.

A Useful Definition of General Education

In the AAC booklet, A New Vitality in General Education, the following definition is provided: “We define general education as the cultivation of the knowledge, skills, and attitude that all of us use and live by during most of our lives — whether as parents, citizens, lovers, travelers, participants in the arts, leaders, volunteers, or good Samaritans.”