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The Liberal Arts Come to China

February 5, 2012, 12:01 am

By Brock Read

In a nation whose institutions typically teach to the test and leave little room for elective courses, general-education programs are starting to gain a foothold. Karin Fischer, a Chronicle reporter, explains why China is growing more interested in the liberal arts.

Read Karin’s story: Bucking Cultural Norms, Asia Tries Liberal Arts
Download this recording: MP3 Version

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  • wsavage

    What a wonderful, honest reflection on what it means to be a human being fully alive!

  • ampreston

    What a breathe of fresh air to hear from a confident person who knows who is he…bravo!

  • rockymtranger

    I am struck by the words used to describe Ari, and I wonder how many people judge him based on those words. It says a lot about Ari that he embraces those terms and is true to who he is.

  • gibsonce

    I have found most gay people who are “conservative” are “fiscal conservatives” as opposed to “social conservatives.” I am not sure where our friend Ari falls on the “conservative spectrum,” but I would hope he is not a “social conservative,” as that would be a bit ironic…

    I believe most “gay conservatives” are holding on to what they were taught growing up (i.e. conservative ideals), and cling to these childhood lessons for the sake of honoring tradition…

    Nice he knows who he is and accepts it. I don’t fully understand him, but then again—I’ll never FULLY understand anyone…

    • burger1376

      Why can’t a gay person be socially conservative as well? Obviously, they can’t be against gays, but there are many other socially conservative agendas. What about abortion? What about religion? What about the family and school agendas? What about the way they teach sex education in school. Maybe he also doesn’t like illegal immigration. There are so many issues. To think that conservatives are all “gay haters” is just ignorant on your part. That is like saying all liberals are commies. Simply not true.

  • http://twitter.com/RalfJRitter Ralf J. Ritter 李祖良

    The President and Dean of Golden Gate University have recently published a book which offers a perspective on how Colleges might innovate. The authors advocate a 3 year BA program using a hybrid model of in-person and online instruction:Riptide: The New Normal for Higher EducationDan Angel, Terry Connelly

  • mkt42

    “One shocking number thrown around at the meeting last week was that 40
    percent of all credits earned have not been applied to a degree or a
    credential”

    I see at least two problems with that sentence.  Isn’t the overall graduation rate about 60% or less?  So right off the bat, we’d expect at least 40% of credits to not be applied to a degree.

    And “excess” credits are not necessarily a bad thing.  I took more classes, and was granted more credits, than I needed to graduate.  But that was because I was interested in the material!

  • bscmath78

    The article tells us:

    “…in the early days of the personal computer, the entire machine was proprietary.”
     
    What an incredible misstatement of business and computer history!

    Did no one remember that the Apple I was famously created in a garage?  Released in 1976?  Did no one remember it was created by two guys without any of their own factories?  They built their machine from parts they bought.  The CPU was the MOS 6502.  In 1977, they came out with the Apple II also using the MOS 6502 chip and Mostek MK4096 4K DRAM memory chips.

    Also in 1977, the Commodore PET also ran on the MOS 6502 chip. Commodore bought MOS in 1976 when MOS ran into financial difficulties.

    Also in 1977, the Tandy TRS-80 ran on the Zilog Z80 chip.

    In 1979, the Atari 400 ran on the MOS 6502B chip.

    Earlier, the 1975, Altair 8800, was based on the Intel 8080 chip.

    Even earlier, the 1974, Mark-8 kit (designed by a grad student), was based on the Intel 8008 chip.

    Here is a table of some home computers with a column listing the processor chip used:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_home_computers_by_category#Manufacturers_and_models

    Did no one remember the whole famous story of how an array of cheap, powerful, OEM microchips in constant competition drove the reality of Moore’s Law and revolutionized technology?

    “Then IBM realized they could build a better and cheaper machine by getting the parts from
    others.”

    No, IBM realized that the micro market was getting big enough to target and its traditional development process was too slow and expensive, it would fail again (I guess no mention of the IBM Future Systems (FS) fiasco), so they needed to copy the techniques of their small competitors.  So in 1980, Don Estridge got the mission and the mandate to do things completely the non-IBM way, in order to get to market very quickly with a price competitive product.  The PC (IBM 5150) came out in 1981. There then followed a whole sequence of self-inflicted wounds that helped bring  IBM to its knees while enriching Intel, Microsoft and others.  There have been quite a number of books about this well-known story, did no one remember them?

    Now it is true that back in 1975, IBM had come out with the IBM 5100 Portable Computer and then in 1978 the IBM 5110 Portable Computer, both based on IBM proprietary hardware.  Even though they ran the non-proprietary BASIC and APL languages, they managed to be unsuccessful.  It probably took these two failures to help convince IBM management to follow the rest of the industry’s lead and give up its proprietary hardware habits, despite the risks to the rest of its business.

    At an earlier time, it had been difficult for Watson Jr. to get IBM to take transistors (a Bell Labs invention) seriously. And earlier, IBM was slow to act on electronic computers, letting Univac take the lead. IBM had almost a tradition of being slow to implement new technology, letting others develop the market before entering.

    You have to wonder when such well-known events are not remembered.

  • Dr_Zachary_Smith

    Some questions:

    1) What do you mean by an “educated population”? What does it mean to be “educated”?

    2) If the “piece of paper” is arbitrary and meaningless, what makes completion of any hours different? How do we demonstrate that difference–if it indeed exists–to those who pay us for our work?

    And, possibly, college completion might actually mean something to our students. Perhaps a sense that we care about them, that we acknowledge that they know things before they come to us, and that we care about helping them complete their educational goals are all important to them. 

    We often behave as if those things are not important to us.

  • robert_wyatt

    The degree is like a check, its value comes only from what it represents not the value of the paper itself. Complaining about ”extra “credits without credentials is devaluing learning and emphasizing the value of the credential.

    If a student stops 1 credit short (let’s say bowling) of a degree are they any different than a student with the degree?

  • Dr_Zachary_Smith

    “are they any different than a student with the degree?”
    Yes: one has a degree, the other doesn’t. Credentialing is important, and even academics recognize it; try to get into a graduate school without that degree.

    If you mean, in the Grand Scheme of Things, is there any difference between the students, the answer is: perhaps, perhaps not. I have the same degree as many of the people I went to graduate school with. Some are much better scholars than I, some far worse. If a degree is worth only credentialing as it is constructed, then I suggest that it needs to be re-examined.

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