Science, industry, and racial barriers: one of America's most eminent historians reflects on a lifetime of change and stasis But the challenges I, my brother, Buck, and my sisters, Mozella and Anne, faced were always formidable. Living through years of remarkable change, the barrier of race was a constant. With the appearance of each new institution [...]
Liberal arts needed in the tech world: why having a facility for languages, of all sorts, enhances the richness of software development. From the editorial: Most liberal arts degrees encourage a well-rounded curriculum that can give students exposure to programming alongside the humanities. Philosophy, literature, art, history and language give students a thorough understanding of how [...]
AI is coming, and it's our boon: how working with computers and technology can, in fact, aid the inquiry into ourselves. From the editorial: Making artificial intelligence easy for regular people to use and love depends on a field of research called human-computer interaction, or HCI. And for Ben Shneiderman, a computer science professor at the University of Maryland, [...]
The Humanities Code: how literature helps to write software. The author talks about the creative process required to compose ideas in all languages, including the technological. From the article: I’ve worked in software for years and, time and again, I’ve seen someone apply the arts to solve a problem of systems. The reason for this [...]
Can the humanities provide the skills that employers find missing? A survey of employers shows that college graduates lack both the "hard" and "soft" skills they are seeking, from writing to problem solving. From the article. Among ‘hard skills’ – unambiguous proficiencies useful on the job – managers said new grads were most lacking in [...]
How liberal arts can be, despite conventional thinking, the pathway to economic success. From the article: Employers' demand for professionals with a liberal arts background might actually be greater than generally perceived, largely because their broader scope of knowledge and skills learned can differentiate themselves from the pool of candidates.
Beyond Op-Eds: New Ways of Advocating the Humanities: the former director of the National Humanities Center discusses ways to get teachers, and students, more involved in explaining how and why the humanities are important. From the article: "...what is most needed right now: not making the case but developing richer and more meaningful ways of [...]
The master economy and student majors: should states grant incentives to students to select a particular course of study? Dorfman says no: The logic behind such proposals is that state funding should be concentrated on where it provides the highest return on investment, so humanities and other majors perceived as leading to low-paying jobs don’t [...]
The fight over liberal arts education in Japan. The humanities and liberal arts are under pressure from the government, but have allies in the business community. From the article: the national government wants to focus national resources for higher education on fields that nourish students’ skills that are immediately adaptable to the needs of the labor [...]
Where it's at: or better, where "at" (@) has been. What is modern is ancient, if we should notice. From the article: "The earliest yet discovered reference to the @ symbol is a religious one. It features in a 1345 Bulgarian translation of a Greek chronicle. Held today in the Vatican Apostolic Library, it features the @ [...]
