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Asking the "Enduring Questions"
From the National Endowment for the Humanities comes news of a new grant program for colleges and universities entitled "Enduring Questions." The program gives 18- to 24- month grants for pilot courses that avoid extensive specialization, focus on a specific question about the human experience, emphasize the close reading of original texts, and provide intellectual pluralism. The suggested "questions" are ones that a true liberal education should pose to students--including such topics as the definition of the "good life," the nature of human dignity, and the meaning of freedom and happiness. As Anthony Kronman has written in his recent book, Education's End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given up on the Meaning of Life, the evisceration of these "Permanent Things" in our institutions of higher learning has led to a more impoverished academic experience for students.
This program is surely good news, as are the various broad and engaging programs starting up across the nation thanks to the support of alumni interested in restoring a rigorous and coherent liberal education for students. For example, Texas alumni are helping to make possible a new Program in Western Civilization and American Institutions at UT-Austin. Alumni at Hamilton College have helped establish the Alexander Hamilton Institute which is bringing together large numbers of students--in a variety of scholarly communities--to engage life's big questions.
Another new venture is especially deserving of mention: The National Great Books Curriculum Academic Community. Started by faculty at Arapahoe College, Oakton College, Santa Barbara College, Washington College, and Wright College, this consortium now offers a rich curriculum specially designed for faculty and colleges interested in teaching the great books which address the fundamental issues of the human condition. This new program stems from a combined grant from the NEH and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and it is one that faculty, administrators and trustees should note with interest.
Posted by Sandra E. Czelusniak on September 25, 2008 at September 25, 2008 03:03 PM
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