The value of music in liberal arts education and integrating musicing into a music appreciation course

A liberal arts education for Christians is about finding God’s truth; therefore, Christian students need to be educated in a broad range of subjects, including music. While a music appreciation course is thought to be about gaining knowledge of music, some music scholars have pointed out that a music curriculum should involve students in experiencing the essence of music through doing. This article discusses God’s invitation for us to music and the value of music in a liberal arts education. In addition, it looks at the integration of a praxial approach (referred to here as musicing) in a music appreciation course.

Speculating on the liberal arts: Exploring possible futures for humanities education

The article draws on concepts from speculative design to explore an alternative educational group existing outside the boundaries of an accredited university. Inspired by the imaginative approach of speculative design, I propose a small-scale reading and discussion group as a pathway to explore possible futures open to aspects of humanities education. The concept aims to reposition elements of the humanities from within the degree-granting Canadian university space to engage the wider public through a network meant to ideally foster an interconnected community of learners. This rhizomatic network would provide avenues for those without the means, access, or desire to pursue post-secondary education in the humanities to engage in questions that are relevant to their lived experience. I use an inquiry-based model of learning to explore probable, plausible, and preferable futures for liberal arts education as a way to challenge some current modes of thinking and provoke further discussion and research.

Development of “Digital Humanities” as a Liberal Arts Class at University

The purpose of this study is to explore the curriculum and educational contents of four Korean universities that are educating or plan to educate their students in the Digital Humanities, as well as to find and develop Digital Humanities classes suitable for one semester within their liberal arts education classes. As a result of the survey, the four universities were classified according to the affiliation of the students’ subject at each school and the level of programming related to data processing. A and B universities’ Digital Humanities major students were predominantly from liberal arts majors, C universities students consisted both of liberal arts and science and engineering majors, and D universities students’ majors were science and engineering. Universities from group A used basic Google apps and Excel, but D universities used higher-level programming languages. However, Digital Humanities classes at these universities are based on a three-step course: First, education involving basic concepts for Digital Humanities and basic tools for data analysis. Second, search for applicability to Digital Humanities through existing majors. Third, the practical application and creation of the Digital Humanities project. Accordingly, this study sought ways to effectively convey this three-step process in the short period of one semester and devised a detailed lecture outline.