Applying Anthropology to Develop University-Affiliated Childcare Centers

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-49
Author(s):  
Ruth Jolie

I often tell my students that, for me, I have the best job in the world: I get to teach, which allows me to interact with bright, inquisitive minds, and discuss the most fascinating subject in the world—people! While I work at a small (approximately 3,000 students) Catholic-affiliated liberal arts university that emphasizes teaching, I also spend a portion of my time doing service for the university. Increasingly, I find myself practicing applied anthropology at the same time. Training in ethnographic methods and a grounding in social theory are precisely what makes anthropologists incredibly useful in academic education, beyond the classroom. In this article, I provide a case study illustrating the importance of applying anthropology in the service of academic institutions. In this case, I found myself as an advocate for colleagues while setting up two university-affiliated childcare facilities. Although this case study may provide a blueprint for others interested in setting up affiliations at similar institutions, I also hope that it demonstrates the possibilities for applying anthropology at work where the stakeholders include one's colleagues.

1990 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 76-80
Author(s):  
R. Robert Robbins

The undergraduate program at the University of Texas has grown into the largest astronomy teaching program in the world, with some 7000 students per year (almost 20,000 credit hours). The department has 22.5 Ph.D.-level teaching faculty, about 45 graduate students, and about 40 pre-professional undergraduate majors. But most of the enrollment is in courses that satisfy the science requirements of students in liberal arts and non-technical majors. In 1985–86, 96.4 per cent of our undergraduate credit hours taught were in such classes. It is instructive to examine the historical reasons for our growth and its educational consequences, and to draw some conclusions from both for other programs.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Lin ◽  
Qian Meng ◽  
Xuan Weng

Abstract Universities in the U. S. have adopted new curriculum to meet changes in the world. But how bold is the change, and how expanded is the reform vary by institutions. In this article, we look at the new curriculum for general education at the University of Maryland as a case study. We will first conduct a review of literature, which provides readers with an overview of the evolvement of general education and how it leads to the current types of reforms. We then present the reform at the University of Maryland, highlighting some key changes such as the addition of the I-Series courses, to illustrate the depth and breadth in reform in general education, and finally we reflect on the innovation and challenges of the reform.


2007 ◽  
Vol 14 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 61-77
Author(s):  
John Israel

AbstractYenching University did not exist in isolation but was part of several overlapping educational networks, international, national, sectarian, and local. Internationally, it was a modern Christian liberal arts university, comparable to Christian higher educational institutions in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Nationally, it was one of the colleges under the aegis of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in China and, more broadly, part of a modern higher educational network, centered in the large cities of eastern China. Locally, it was a component of a super-elite North China complex of higher education located in Beijing and Tianjin. This complex, as Yeh Wen-hsin has pointed out in her taxonomy of Republican-era higher education, stood in contrast with Guomindang universities such as National Central and Sun Yat-sen, as well as with teachers colleges, provincial universities, diploma mills, and other less renowned institutions.


2008 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
pp. 489-499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter McIlveen ◽  
Dominic Pensiero

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to overview the Backpack‐to‐Briefcase project which established a set of prototype career development learning strategies for Australian university career services, with the aim of contributing to their services for supporting students and graduates to make a smoother transition into graduate employment and the world‐of‐work.Design/methodology/approachA case study analysis of the development and implementation of three career development learning interventions is described. These interventions include: employability skills workshops for students; career mentoring for students; and services to small and medium sized employers to support their recruitment and induction of new graduates into their worksites.FindingsThe prototype interventions developed in the project extended the work of the university's Career Service. The interventions were judged as having the capacity to be readily implemented by university career services. A key outcome was the success of the graduate‐induction initiative which engaged small and medium sized employers traditionally unfamiliar with or unable to enter the graduate recruitment market.Originality/valueThis case study highlights the value of university career services' contributions to undergraduate preparation for the world‐of‐work, particularly in regional areas. Furthermore, the case study highlights the importance of inter‐departmental cooperation within the university environment, and the value of university‐industry collaboration toward the goal of improving graduates' transitions into the workforce, particularly in rural and regional areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana L Shreaves ◽  
Yu-Hui Ching ◽  
Lida Uribe-Florez ◽  
Jesús Trespalacios

This mixed-methods study examined faculty perceptions of online teaching at a mid-sized liberal arts university in order to understand faculty acceptance and participation in online teaching at the university. Seventy-nine participants responded to a survey that collected qualitative and quantitative data. Content analysis examined faculty perceptions of online teaching and identified six themes. An examination of 21 quantitative factors identified 17 factors reported by more than 50% of respondents to influence their decision to teach or not teach online. Study participants perceived online learning as attractive to students but they wanted any online courses carefully regulated, in part because online learning was seen as contrary to their teaching values. Participants were influenced by personal preferences but also the desire for robust faculty resources, and more effective technology and infrastructure. Implications and directions for future research were discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-66
Author(s):  
Jane Kembo

Testing and examining go on in higher education all the time through continuous assessments and end semester examinations. The grades scored by students determine not only academic mobility but eventually who get employed in the job market, which seems to be shrinking all over the world. Those charged with testing are often staff who have higher qualifications in their subject areas but are not necessarily teaching or examination experts. Against this background, the researcher wanted to find out what was happening at selected university across three schools: Social Studies, Education and Science. The university is fairly young having been awarded its charter twenty years ago. The paper asked two questions namely, at what levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy are lecturers asking examination questions? Secondly, do the level and balance of questions show growth in examining skills? The study evaluated over 1039 questions from randomly selected examination papers from the Examinations Office for the academic years from 2014/15 to 2017/18 (three academic years). A guide from the list of verbs used in Anderson s (revision of Bloom was used to analyze the questions. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the trends in testing for each year. ANOVA and t-tests were used to find out if there were significant differences between numbers across categories and within categories. The results of the study show that most examination questions are at the levels of remember (literal) and knowledge (understand). In 2016/17 and 2017/18 academic years, there were significant differences in the percentage of questions examined in these two categories. However, it seems from the study, that testing or examining skills do not grow through the practice of setting questions. There is need for examiners to be trained to use the knowledge in setting questions that discriminate effectively across the academic abilities of students they teach.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Gabriella Beckles-Raymond

In the context of the rise in open racism following post-credit crunch Brexit Britain, movements seeking educational reform to address racism within the academy emerged. However, such efforts must grapple with the ever-increasing corporatization of higher education. This article aims to disrupt the duplicity of widening participation rhetoric, which makes claims to moral values but in practice is governed by a neoliberal agenda. Using bell hooks’ ethic of love, I discuss a case study of a widening participation program and a liberal arts university. I claim that so-called resource dilemmas are better understood as moral dilemmas and that centring a love ethic in this process of reframing enables us to rethink how we navigate such dilemmas in higher education.


2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurizio De Vita

The book brings together critical considerations and experiences linked to the work of the author, lecturer in restoration at the Florence University Faculty of Architecture, as supervisor of degree theses on restoration. The reflections concern teaching Restoration as a subject, the conditions within which the knowledge and culture of restoration can ripen within our universities and the most recent problems encountered by both the discipline and restoration projects. In the first part of the publication, these aspects are set out in broad and more precisely conceptual and methodological terms in chapters and themed paragraphs which also act as a guide to drawing up degree theses on restoration, as well as a contributing to the didactics and efficiency of the specific discipline. This is followed by a selection of degree theses on restoration discussed in recent years which show the route from the principles, general problems and intervention criteria for every case study to drawing up a project. They are projects that deal with analysis methods and techniques, surveys, specialist restorations, regeneration, and the relationship between old and new. In short, the projects are what gave the final stage in the university education meaning and substance, also in order to acquire fundamental keys to restoration culture and activities in the world after university.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erkan Acar

<p class="apa">The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine faculty perceptions on international students with respect to benefits and challenges of having them in a liberal arts university located in Istanbul, Turkey. The research data were collected through evaluation of pertinent documents of the school and interviews with sixteen faculty members and one administrative staff member. Revealed themes for the benefits of having international students within the institution included: (1) escalading the overall academic and disciplinary success of the school, (2) creating diversity in learning environment and (3) generating competitive learning environment. Themes that are revealed for the challenges of having international students included: (1) adaptation to a new educational system, (2) language accents, (3) time management issues, and (4) isolation and grouping.</p>


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