Asserts that a sense of vocation implies knowing one's self, one's beliefs and values, and one's position in the world. Suggests that a central goal of contemporary undergraduate education should be to cultivate an initial sense of vocation. (EV)

At the time of the founding of the Association of American Colleges in 1915, the role of the four-year, residential, undergraduate college in American higher education was being challenged by the expansion of the state universities. In some regions of the country, leaders of the undergraduate colleges, whether denominational or independent, saw…

Management, which generates wealth, determines the distribution of wealth, and helps control the direction and accessibility of careers in most developed countries, is a subject worthy of the humanities, and deserves to be pursued more aggressively as a point of contact among disciplines. (MSE)

Liberal arts colleges are seen as engaged in moral education. Three moral lessons that a college teaches are described as (1) love for the truth, (2) learning is a human good, and (3) learning requires intellectual rigor or "discipline." Colleges are seen as places of hope. (MLW)

The spotlight on higher education has never been more intense than during the 1980s. Two central themes for response are the need to create greater campus community and cohesiveness and the need to tilt against rampant vocationalism and restore the liberal arts to the place of primacy in undergraduate education. (MLW)