Reimagining what happens in the classroom

I recently perused a recent publication called “A New Agenda for 
Higher Education” (http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/ 
productCd-0470257571….) from the Carnegie Foundation for the 
Advancement of Teaching. It was incredibly timely, in that the book 
discusses ways of blending the approaches to knowledge that typically 
characterize liberal arts education on the one hand, and professional 
education on the other, and brings cases and syllabi from actual 
courses taught by outstanding faculty in the sciences, humanities, and 
professions, each of which encourage students to develop a deeper 
engagement with the subject matter, themselves, and society. 
I was particularly struck by the use of the term “engagement,” which 
resonated with the ways we used it during our Consultation, and which 
point towards a richer field of meaning for the term in Hillel work. 
Engagement involves self-authorship in the context of community, 
society, history and tradition. We are approaching a point in Hillel 
where we are ready to think deeply and challenge ourselves and our 
students to develop methodologies of engagement that reflect this 
understanding. In particular, I was struck by the emphasis most of the 
featured courses place on writing, and in particular journaling and 
reflective essays–even in biology and engineering classes. 

Questions for us: What can we, as a co-curricular organization, learn 
from curricular entities? What are we uniquely positioned to 
contribute? What if more institutions of higher education adopted 
approaches like the one advocated in this book–what would that mean 
for Hillel?