The liberal arts college's role has always been education for intellectual excellence and technical competence, grounded in a sensitivity for the dimension of depth in human experience. As American culture becomes more urban and more secular, the liberal arts colleges must maintain their essential task of asking ultimate questions. (Author/MLW)

Aspects of the small liberal arts college's environment that contribute to the intellectual and personal development of faculty as well as students include accessibility, visibility, flexibility, the institution's desire for interdisciplinary inquiry, and a reward system for scholarship. (MSE)

The perception that a college has an excellent academic program is seen as a judgment about the whole college, not just about a few departments. To maintain this judgment, the administrator of a small college must exercise balance in allocation of resources to departments and academic support areas. (Author/MLW)

A former faculty member at Eisenhower College, an experimental college that closed after only a few years' operation, gives an anecdotal account of some of the problems the college faced and how the administration handled them. (MSE)

Liberal arts colleges have abandoned their goal of education for the university-college model of education-for-a-job. The need for a new model is discussed. Colleges need to establish a central theme: "a curricular career of learning how to learn and accepting the responsibilities of leadership." (Author/MLW)

The approaches taken by Alverno College, Clayton State College, DePaul University, James Madison University, Northeast Missouri State University, and Rhode Island College in using the results of student assessment productively are described. (MSE)