Continuing to sit in on a grad Comp/Rhet class as a guest panelist/speaker…
Today, we spent some time talking about a piece in the NY Times that has attracted quite a bit of attention. In fact, I just checked the Times and it sits as #1 in their Most Popular listing.
Glossing the details, the author, Mark Taylor (a professor in Columbia’s Religion Dept.), argues that higher ed needs to be modernized to meet 21st century demands. While the argument isn’t new, one of his recommendations that I like is his call for more cross-disciplinary collaboration. Historically, colleges such as Evergreen and UC-Santa Cruz have made this a centerpiece of their curricular model since the 70s, but increasingly, more universities have moved in this direction (e.g., MIT Media Lab, Penn State’s Information Sciences & Technology, Stanford’s H-Star, Maryland’s iSchool). I’m somewhat surprised, he didn’t briefly allude to this relatively established trend, but still, it certainly can’t hurt to advocate for more of it.
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Penn State, Stanford University, Evergreen State College, UC Santa Cruz, MIT Media Lab