The fevered controversy over America's educational future isn't simply academic; those who have proposed sweeping reforms include government officials, politicians, foundation officers, think-tank researchers, journalists, media pundits, and university administrators. Drowned out in that noisy debate are the voices of those who actually teach the liberal arts exclusively to undergraduates in our nation's small liberal arts colleges, or SLACs.The Best Kind of College attempts to rectify that glaring oversight. As an insiders' "guide" to the liberal arts in its truest form the volume brings together thirty award-winning professors from across the country to convey in various ways some of the virtues, the electricity, and, overall, the importance of the small-seminar, face-to-face approach to education, as typically featured in SLACs. Before we in the United States abandon or compromise our commitment to the liberal arts—oddly enough, precisely at a time when our global competitors are discovering, emulating, and founding American-style SLACs and new liberal arts programs—we need a wake-up call, namely to the fact that the nation's SLACs provide a time-tested model of educational integrity and success.

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Susan McWilliams and John E. Seery, Pomona College

Part One: The Classroom

What’s Love Got to Do with It? Shakespeare: A Liberal Art
Martha Andresen, Pomona College

In Defense of Small: Some Personal Reflections on Teaching Chemistry at a Primarily Undergraduate Institution
Dasan M. Thamattoor, Colby College

An Invitation to GetLost: The Right Kind of Place for Liberal Learning
Nicholas Buccola, Linfield College

From Observation to Engagement to Collaboration: The Liberal Arts Journey
Jerusha B. Detweiler-Bedell, Lewis & Clark College

Magic in the Classroom
Arthur T. Benjamin, Harvey Mudd College

Part Two: The Career

Learning to Live a Life of Learnable Moments
Justin Crowe, Williams College

(What Is Meant to Be) Straight Talk on Intellectual, Cultural, and Moral Formation
Jason Peters, Augustana College

Robert Frost, Symbolical Teacher
Robert H. Bell, Williams College

The “Job Definition” of a Faculty Member at a Liberal Arts Institution
Elizabeth J. Jensen, Hamilton College

How Liberal Arts Colleges Have Shaped My Life
Akila Weerapana, Wellesley College

Part Three: The Curriculum

Liberal Education as Respecting Who We Are
Peter Augustine Lawler, Berry College

Humanizing the Subject: Toward a Curriculum for Liberal Education in the Twenty-First Century
Jeffrey Freyman, Transylvania University

Singing a New History: Pathways to Learning in a Liberal Arts Setting
Steven S. Volk, Oberlin College

Living Art
Ruthann Godollei, Macalester College

Social Entrepreneurship and the Liberal Arts
Jonathan Isham, Middlebury College

Beyond Cs Getting Degrees: Teaching the Liberal Arts and Sciences at a Comprehensive University
Jeffrey A. Becker, University of the Pacific

Part Four: The Community

Unlearning Helplessness: The Liberal Arts and the Future of Education
Adam Kotskom, Shimer College

Liberal Arts Colleges: The Mother of (Re)Invention
Jay Barth, Hendrix College

The Best Kind of College: Spelman College
Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper, Spelman College

Athletics in the Liberal Arts
Jennifer Shea Lane, Wesleyan University

Going Elsewhere, Coming Home
Yolanda P. Cruz, Oberlin College

On Not Lamenting Our Virginity
Jane F. Crosthwaite, Mount Holyoke College

Part Five: The College

Departures
K. E. Brashier, Reed College

What Matters Most? Liberal Arts Colleges in Perilous Times
John K. Roth, Claremont McKenna College

Importing the American Liberal Arts College?
Kristine Mitchell and Cotten Seiler, Dickinson College

Nationalism and the Liberal Arts
Will Barndt, Pitzer College

The Liberal Arts and the Pursuit of Wisdom
Timothy Baker Shutt, Kenyon College

About the Editors
Index