This paper reviews the results of a survey of institutions of higher education which offer coursework focusing on Japanese Americans and emphasizes the program in Japanese American Studies at San Francisco State University. The results showed a distribution of twenty-eight courses offered at fifteen institutions in California, Washington and…

This paper describes a thematically organized interdisciplinary reading course, offers a rationale for including literature in a reading curriculum, and outlines an approach for presenting the short story in the context of a thematic interdisciplinary college reading course. It concludes with a brief discussion of two short stories and provides…

This paper briefly examines the viability and potential of a non-remedial college freshman composition course designed for those Mexican-American students who are capable of entering and successfully completing the regular freshman English class. The rhetorical concepts and skills of composition normally taught in Freshman English can more easily…

Describes the development of women's studies courses and programs. Discusses the challenges and problems related to the introduction of new programs, restyling teaching techniques, providing role models, altering course content, textbooks, funding, continuing education, as well as faculty, staff, and student support and opposition. (TP)

Outlines the courses offered by the Department of Library and Information Studies at Manchester Polytechnic, and describes the use of a database management system to teach aspects of information science. Details of a number of specific applications are given and future developments are discussed. (CLB)

Steps to improving introductory courses to keep the appropriate liberal education emphasis include: teach less, restructure testing, relate course content to problems in the outside world, pursue ethical issues, balance facts with other forms of knowledge, teach the arts of discussion and critical thinking, and help students develop wisdom. (MSE)

While testing for the effects that a college course in the politics of race had upon students' attitudes toward blacks, study also provides indirect evidence for substantiating several conditions under which course content is influential for changing political attitudes or behavior. (RJ)

A survey of 12 colleges and universities in California was undertaken to explore common complaints with regard to introductory philosophy courses. A lack of consensus and consistency in content and reading requirements, a lack of correlation with advanced courses, and charges of irrelevance are among the complaints. Corrective recommendations are…

Discusses results of a survey of eight leading administrators/authors/professors in professional schools of mass communication, who unanimously hold that mass communication theory is an essential component in the professional school curriculum. Discusses content of theory courses, anticipated outcomes, and rationales for including theory in media…

Discusses the debate surrounding multiculturalism and the expansion of the literary canon by examining Stanford University's decision not to require Plato's "Republic." Suggests that the criteria for the core curriculum should not be principally based on the extent to which a work contributes to the reduction of demeaning attitudes. (28…

A professor of sociology and anthropology chronicles the development of a course in environmental problems, beginning with inquiry into the issues and culminating in design of a course focused on research and discussion rather than lectures. Students responded positively to the exploration of multiple perspectives, particularly those at the…

Describes the way in which a new applied-physics course introduced in British Columbia as part of a program in applied academics can be seen to construct different networks in different contexts. Employs actor network theory (ANT). Contains 20 references. (DDR)

I report on a study of 301 sociologists to determine which concepts, topics, and skills they deem most important to cover in the introductory course and in the sociology curriculum. Respondents indicated high agreement that the list of skills, topics, and concepts adequately represented the range of possible items. I use both the raw ratings and…

This study examined curriculum deliberation and decision-making in higher education through selected interviews with 11 university teachers in 11 different disciplines. All were full-time and tenure-track or already tenured. After completing individual interviews the participants gathered for a culminating discussion. Examination of the data found…

While there is a need for basic oral competence, speech communication programs should provide more sophisticated training in public eloquence. Such an advanced course should first be genre-centered instead of interaction centered. Instead of emphasizing the audience-speaker interaction, the course should center on the creation, analysis, and…