Synopses & Reviews
Although widely regarded as having the finest system of higher education in the world, most American colleges and universities have been slow to embrace innovation and needed reforms—even as studies evidence the potential benefits to undergraduate learning experiences. In
Reinventing Ourselves, the authors examine the evolution of alternative types of teaching and learning in order to provide a supportive context for reinventing the academy around new cultures, structures, and practices.
Intended for reform-minded college professors and administrators, this book examines the experiences of over 20 different institutions pioneering new approaches for more effective teaching and learning. To facilitate a better understanding of these alternatives, the book provides
- Historical perspectives and examples of institutional experiments that influenced the development of new colleges and programs
- Ways in which organizational structure, culture, and pedagogy are changing
- Examples of impediments to institutional change
- A conceptualization of a coherent organizational structure and faculty culture
- Quantitative and qualitative reports that assess the effectiveness of ongoing efforts to adopt new approaches to teaching and learning
- An overview of lessons from past attempts to reinvent the academy
- New directions for alternative education
Calling for both a rethinking of existing approaches to teaching and learning, and for a review of the traditional boundaries within institutions and between disciplines, this book offers a rich store of ideas for reforming higher education in America.
Review
"...this book should be a must-read for any reform-minded college professor or administrator..."
—Alexander W. Astin, Director, Higher Education Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles
Synopsis
Reinventing Ourselves examines the experiences and lessons from over 20 different institutions pioneering new approaches for more effective teaching and learning. Many of the colleges included in this volume began as both educational and social experiments, representing new ways of thinking about educational goals, curricular organization, institutional governance, and faculty roles and rewards. With new calls for both rethinking our approaches to teaching and learning and for reviewing the traditional boundaries within institutions and between disciplines, Reinventing Ourselves offers a rich store of ideas from which to draw.
About the Author
BARBARA LEIGH SMITH is Provost at The Evergreen State College. She founded the Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education and has longstanding interests in learning communities, interdisciplinary education, collaborative learning, and institutional change. She thinks longevity matters in creating sustainable long-term change and has been at Evergreen since 1978.
JOHN McCANN received his undergraduate and MPA degrees from the Evergreen State College and his PhD in US history from the University of Oregon. He taught for several years in the evening part-time studies at Evergreen, where he founded the half-time labor studies program. He has published a history of the machinists’ union at the Boeing Company, and has been active in labor education in the Pacific Northwest. He currently works as Academic grants Manager in the provost’s office at Evergreen.
Table of Contents
About the Editors.
About the Contributors.
Preface.
Foreword.
Section I: Historical Perspectives and Institutional Examples.
1. Progressive experiments in higher education in the 1920s and 1930s (Steven R. Coleman, essayist).
2. The innovative colleges and universities of the 1960s and 1970s (Joy Rosenzweig Kliewer, University of Sarasota–California Campus).
3. Interdisciplinary education at Hampshire College (Ann P. McNeal and Frederick Stirton Weaver, Hampshire College).
4. Evergreen at twenty-five: Sustaining long-term innovation (Barbara Leigh Smith, The Evergreen State College).
5. Bridging theory and practice: Public service at The Evergreen State College (Magda Costantino, Emily Decker, Jeanine L. Elliott, Tina Kuckkahn, and Helen Lee, The Evergreen State College).
Section II: Powerful Pedagogies.
Part One: Learning Communities.
6. Learning communities: A convergence zone for statewide educational reform (Barbara Leigh Smith, The Evergreen State College).
7. Integration and assessment of service-learning in learning communities (Karen Kashmanian Oates, New Century College; Laura Gaither, Argonauta Interiors).
8. Liberal education, learning communities, and the transformative quest (Les K. Adler, Sonoma State University).
9. Toward an interdisciplinary epistemology: Faculty culture and institutional change (Grant H. Cornwell and Eve W. Stoddard, St. Lawrence University).
10. Voices in seminar: Ideologies and identities (Susan Fiksdal, The Evergreen State College).
Part Two: Rethinking Teaching and Learning.
11. Powerful pedagogies (William H. Newell, Miami University in Oxford).
12. Two ways to organize interdisciplinary study around inquiry (Donald L. Finkel, The Evergreen State College).
13. Multiple forms of communication in the classroom (Mark Pedelty, University of Minnesota).
14. Student-active science in interdisciplinary studies: Problems and solutions (Janet F. Ott, The Evergreen State College).
15. Increasing access in the sciences through interdisciplinary feminist perspectives (Gary L. Bornzin, Fairhaven College).
16. Building an organization that reflects interdisciplinarity (Anne G. Scott and Celestino Fernández, University of Arizona).
17. The academic department in a multidisciplinary context: An argument for the administrative holding company amidst communities of learners (Joseph J. Comprone, University of Connecticut–Avery Point).
18. The importance of organizational culture (Sandra J. Sarkela, SUNY Potsdam).
19. Reconceptualizing the faculty role: Alternative models (James R. Chen, Michael V. Fortunato, Alan Mandell, Susan Oaks, and Duncan RyanMann, SUNY Empire State College).
Section III: Taking Stock and Looking Ahead.
20. Interdisciplinary assessment for interdisciplinary programs (Karl L. Schilling, State Council of Higher Education).
21. Students on interdisciplinary education: How they learn and what they learn (John McCann, The Evergreen State College).
22. An ethnographic/folkloristic approach to analyzing and assessing the cultures of alternative institutions (Peter Tommerup, California School of Professional Psychology).
23. The interdisciplinary variable: Then and now (Julie Thompson Klein, Wayne State University).
24. An essay in guiding images for college teaching and learning (Robert H. Knapp, Jr., The Evergreen State College).
25. New directions for alternative education (Robert Benedetti, University of the Pacific).
26. Knowledge, politics, and interdisciplinary education (Charles W. Anderson, University of Wisconsin–Madison).
Index.