Institutional Commitment to Diversity and Multiculturalism through Institutional Transformation: A Case Study of Olivet College

2002 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evon Walters
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Institutional Transformation ◽  
Institutional Commitment ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
American Council On Education ◽  
American Students ◽  
Changing Demographics

Olivet College is a private, residential liberal arts college in central Michigan that enrolls approximately 900 students. The College was founded in 1844 by abolitionists and was the first college in the nation, by charter, to open to women and people of color. Yet, over the last two decades Olivet College failed to acknowledge changing demographics and problems of intergroup relations. In 1992, a racial brawl involving White and African-American students put the college into crisis. The incident launched the college into a process of reassessment and redefinition that resulted in a major institutional transformation. Diversity was a major part of this initiative. As a result of its success in infusing multiculturalism into its structure, Olivet College was recently selected by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as a Model Institution for its diversity initiatives. Additionally, it was selected as one of 35 institutions out of 675 nationwide to participate in President Clinton's initiative on race and was spotlighted by the American Council on Education for its exemplary work in infusing diversity across the campus. This article presents all aspects of Olivet College's diversity initiative including mission, curriculum, co-curriculum, students, faculty, and staff. These strategies are applicable not only to small private liberal arts colleges, but to other institutions of learning as they attempt to create an action plan that addresses the challenge of diversity/multiculturalism in the higher education system.

Common thread: The Fifth Discipline from a liberal arts college perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
William D. Schneper
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Learning Organization ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
The Us ◽  
Learning Principles

Purpose Liberal arts colleges (LACs) have played a crucial role in the foundation and development of the US higher education system. Today, these schools face numerous organizational and environmental challenges that threaten their performance and even survival. This paper aims to examine whether Senge’s (1990) vision of the learning organization can serve a useful function in responding to these challenges. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual analysis was conducted based on research relating to learning organizations, LACs and the liberal arts tradition. Findings The paper identifies significant congruence between learning organization and liberal arts/liberal learning principles. LACs may benefit from applying and modifying Senge’s (1990) framework to their own unique situations. Originality/value While The Fifth Discipline has certainly contributed to the lexicon of higher education, the role that Senge’s (1990) framework plays in LACs has received scant research attention. This paper investigates the applicability of Senge’s approach to an underexplored context.

Revising the Declension Narrative: Liberal Arts Colleges, Universities, and Honors Programs, 1870s-2010s

2014 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Kimball
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Honors Programs ◽  
College Mission ◽  
The Past ◽  
Diversity In Higher Education ◽  
Arts Programs ◽  
The U.S

This article examines the prominent narrative asserting that liberal arts colleges have continuously declined in number and status over the past 130 years. Bruce A. Kimball identifies problems in this declension narrative and proposes a revision positing that the decline of liberal arts colleges began only after 1970. Further, he maintains that the fraction of the U.S. population enrolling in collegiate liberal arts programs has remained surprisingly consistent over the past two centuries. That same fraction continues after 1970 because universities began to replicate the liberal arts college by establishing honors programs, and student enrollment after 1970 shifted from liberal arts colleges to the new subsidized honors programs in universities. Kimball concludes that this shift does not ensure that the fraction of enrollment in collegiate liberal arts will continue to remain consistent in the future. There is reason to doubt the long-term commitment of universities to supporting honors programs devoted to the traditional liberal arts college mission of fostering culture, community, and character, although this mission grows more important and complex as access to and diversity in higher education increase.

A Primer on Applying to the Liberal Arts College

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (04) ◽  
pp. 809-812 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Hanley
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Graduate Programs ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Tenure Track ◽  
Job Seekers ◽  
Teaching College ◽  
Academic Job Market ◽  
The Many ◽  
Job Prospects

Being on the academic job market is one of the greatest horrors of scholarly life. An applicant submits dozens of applications and all too frequently receives no response at all from the majority of places to which she applies. The lack of feedback makes it impossible to know why one was not considered good enough for an interview, making it difficult to improve one's applications and job prospects in the future. A recent review of applications for a tenure-track job at a liberal arts college convinced me that many of the applicants lacked a basic understanding of how to market themselves to a search committee at a teaching college. A part of the problem is likely the many years of assimilation into the research culture of their graduate programs; a process that creates a greater intuitive understanding of the culture of major research institutions than of teaching institutions. Nevertheless many applicants do apply for jobs at liberal arts colleges, so a primer is needed for job seekers who want to maximize their chances of getting an interview for those jobs.

Ancient Baffles and Modern Times: Teaching Ultimate Questions

Horizons ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-298
Author(s):  
Clyde F. Crews
Keyword(s):  
Academic Integrity ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Institutional Commitment ◽  
Religious Values ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Special Challenge

AbstractA special challenge of theology courses in the private liberal arts college is the ability to maintain an institutional commitment to identifiable moral and religious values while at the same time respecting the personal and academic integrity of a pluralistic student body. The Ultimate Questions course has been constructed to introduce such students to fundamental religious questions, problems and critiques and to demonstrate that these considerations begin in a wide variety of human experiences, activities and conceptualizations. Having depended on such thinkers as Tillich and Rahner to suggest that the religious problem is ultimately the human question, the course turns to an investigation of mainline Christian doctrine, worship and praxis as distinctive responses to the ultimate questions.

scholarly journals Constructive Disequilibrium and Transformative Pedagogy

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Nalani ◽  
Christina Gómez ◽  
Andrew Garrod
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Study Abroad ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
The United States ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
American Students ◽  
Study Abroad Program

In this reflective essay we examined the experiences of a group of students from a small liberal arts college in the United States on a study abroad program to the Marshall Islands to intern as preservice teachers in Marshallese schools. Specifically, we examined 32 students’ critical reflections written once they returned from their programs. We interrogated their understanding of themselves regarding their privilege as American students and the inequality between the two nations. Through their teaching of Marshallese students, they deeply questioned the meaning of privilege, culture, identity, and community. We interpreted these experiences through the lens of transformative learning theory and the notion of constructive disequilibrium. When critical-transformative pedagogies inform these experiences, they nudge students out of their comfort zone and offer them opportunities to consider new possibilities that widen their life trajectories and develop global citizenship. We conclude with advocating for the importance of study abroad experiences.

The College Theology Society Jubilee: A Past With a Future

Horizons ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 375-381
Author(s):  
Loretta Devoy
Keyword(s):  
Annual Meeting ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Fiftieth Anniversary ◽  
Nineteen Fifties ◽  
College Professors ◽  
Good Will ◽  
Lasting Impression ◽  
Loyola College

In 1987 the College Theology Society held its annual meeting at Loyola College in Maryland. The cicadas were then at the end of their appearance and crunched underfoot as we walked from the dorms to the sessions. That was the first annual meeting I had attended and the cicadas made a lasting impression on me. As the College Theology Society celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its annual meetings, the cicadas have come and gone again. Since the planning for the Society began, they have come four times, just four times out of their thousands of years of life. As they return to their burrows to begin a new cycle of life, CTS celebrates fifty years of life completed and looks forward another cycle of its theological life already on the horizon. When the cicadas emerge again, seventeen years from now, what will they notice about CTS that is different from today? In other words, will the trajectories of growth present in CTS in 2004 flourish and, if so, what might the returning cicadas see?Several persons who have described the beginning of the College Theology Society have pointed out that until the middle of the nineteen fifties, theology in the liberal arts colleges consisted largely of apologetics taught by persons of intelligence and good will, often priests, who seldom possessed an earned doctorate in the field. Professors with doctorates were usually assigned to the seminaries. A group of liberal arts college professors in theology became aware that they did not enjoy the same credibility in their institutions as professors in other disciplines, in part because the criteria for teaching theology were different and lower than for other departments.

Building an Evolutionary Studies Program at a Small Liberal Arts College

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
Susan M. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Student Involvement ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
Student Participation ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Faculty Members ◽  
Evolutionary Studies ◽  
Minor Degree ◽  
Small Liberal Arts Colleges ◽  
A Minor

Since the very nature of an Evolutionary Studies program is interdisciplinary, it stands to reason that building such a program at any institution would entail the involvement of several disciplines across the curriculum. The fewer faculty members, course offerings, and resources at small liberal arts colleges can pose as obstacles in the development of such a program. However, by reaching out to the few faculty members teaching evolutionary studies, the first step of its development began. From there, both the involvement of other disciplines and a heightened student, faculty, and administrative awareness was needed. Instrumental components in building this program have included speaker events, student participation at evolutionary conferences and workshops, student involvement in research, and the development of new courses and a minor degree. This chapter discusses the successes and barriers in developing an interdisciplinary Evolutionary Studies program at a small liberal arts college.

scholarly journals Orientation for African-American Students at a Small, Liberal Arts College

1990 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-8
Author(s):  
Ogretta V. McNeil
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
New England ◽  
Liberal Arts ◽  
African American Students ◽  
Retention Rate ◽  
Liberal Arts College ◽  
Academic Preparation ◽  
Sat Scores ◽  
American Students ◽  
Entering Students

A three-day program was designed to assist African-American students in their transition to a small, liberal arts college in New England. Although the students admitted in previous years had met the usual predictive criteria for success in college (e.g., good academic preparation and above average SAT scores), their retention rate at the end of the first year had been significantly lower than that for their class. All entering students were invited to participate. Participation was voluntary. The first two years 74% of entering African-American students participated; the third year 85% participated. The goals of the program were (a) to familiarize students with the workings of the college, (b) to allow students an opportunity to meet significant members of the college community, (c) to assist students in adapting to the academic demands of the classroom, and (d) to give students a chance to feel comfortable in the new environment. The retention rate for African-American students for all three years was 96%, similar to the overall rate for their classes.

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