NEWS

International Workshop Doing Liberal Arts and Sciences Education: Promises and Possibilities

Update: July 5, 2016

ICU's Institute for Educational Research and Service (IERS) organized an international workshop on practices of liberal arts and sciences education at ICU on June 22-23, 2016. Six professors from Japan, the USA, the Netherlands, Bangladesh, and South Korea were invited and two professors from Singapore and USA joined the workshop through the TV conference system had lively discussion with ICU faculty members, staff, and students. The workshop had eight presentations based on three themes: Theme 1: Integrative Approaches to Curriculum Development, Theme 2: Diversity and Inclusion, and Theme 3: Evidence- based Policy Making.

After an opening by President Junko Hibiya and an introduction of the workshop by Prof. Insung Jung, Prof. Tricia Craig of Yale-NUS College (Singapore,
Singapore) and Dr. Marco de Waard of Amsterdam University College (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) made presentations on Theme 1 and discussed their core curriculum, development processes and practical examples. Several questions were raised on strategies to realize interdisciplinary apporoaches and meet the challenges.

On Theme 2: Diversity and Inclusion, Prof. Andrea Philott of Asian University for Women, (Chittagong, Bangladesh) and Prof. Adrienne Major of Landmark College (Vermont, USA), made presentations on concrete policies, practices in teaching and learning, and evaluation methods to promote diversity and inclusion at their institutions. Lively discussions were made on how to balance between diversity/inclusion and excellence, the career destination of graduates, and the linkages between education and social change.

Finally, Theme 3: Evidence-based Policy-Making was discussed based on three presentations by Prof. Reiko Yamada of Doshisha University (Kyoto, Japan), Dr. Jennifer Rachford of Pomona College(California, USA), and Prof. Kyong-Mee Chung of Yonsei University (Seoul, S. Korea). The presentations introduced administrative and student data, the decision-making processes, usage of the data, and challenges. After that, engaged discussions were exchanged on data collection methods, how to deal with the data, detailed decision-making processes, and "success" factors.

The workshop was organized as part of the research project entitled "New Internationalization Strategies of Private Higher Education: Towards Sustainable Growth of Small-Scale Private Universities" with financial support from the Promotion and Mutual Aid Corporation for Private Schools of Japan since AY2014. The project is led by Prof. Insung Jung (educational technology, major: education) with Prof. Toshiaki Sasao (community psychology, major: education, peace studies), Prof. Yasuo Shimizu (physical education), Prof. Mikiko Nishimura (sociology of education, major: education, development studies, gender and sexuality studies), and Dr. Hye-Gyeong Ohe (world languages).