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Undeclared

A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education

Chris Higgins

$120

Paperback

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English
MIT Press
11 June 2024
An imaginative tour of the contemporary university as it could be- a place to discover self-knowledge, meaning, and purpose.

An imaginative tour of the contemporary university as it could be- a place to discover self-knowledge, meaning, and purpose.

What if college were not just a means of acquiring credentials, but a place to pursue our formation as whole persons striving to lead lives of meaning and purpose? In Undeclared, Chris Higgins confronts the contemporary university in a bid to reclaim a formative mission for higher education. In a series of searching essays and pointed interludes, Higgins challenges us to acknowledge how far our practices have drifted from our ideals, asking- What would it look like to build a college from the ground up to support self-discovery and personal integration?

What does it mean to be a public university, and are there any left? How can the humanities help the job-ified university begin to take vocation seriously?

Cutting through the underbrush of received ideas, Higgins follows the insight where it leads, clearing a path from the corporate multiversity to the renaissance in higher education that was Black Mountain College and back again. Along the way, we tour a campus bent on becoming a shopping mall, accompany John Dewey through a midlife crisis, and witness the first ""happening."" Through diverse and grounded philosophical engagements, Undeclared assembles the resources to expand the contemporary educational imagination.
By:  
Imprint:   MIT Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm, 
Weight:   369g
ISBN:   9780262547499
ISBN 10:   026254749X
Pages:   400
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Prologue xvii Campus Tour 1 SOUL ACTION: THE SEARCH FOR INTEGRITY IN GENERAL EDUCATION 13 The Formidable Task of Formation 13 Roots and Branches 27 Scattering Requirements 46 A Skeleton Faculty 60 Chest Knowledge 71 Coda 88 New Student Orientation 93 WIDE AWAKE: AESTHETIC EDUCATION AT BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE 109 The Road to Black Mountain 109 An Allegory of Arrival 124 Who Is the Formative Educator? 141 Theater and Wings 157 Learning Here and Now 176 Public Hearing 189 JOB PROSPECTS: VOCATIONAL FORMATION AS HUMANE LEARNING 201 Life in Panem 201 The Great Vocational Question 207 Working with Integrity 220 A New Organ 236 The Last Butler 249 Notes 265 Index 377

Chris Higgins is Associate Professor and Chair in the Department of Formative Education in Boston College's Lynch School of Education and Human Development, where he directs the Transformative Educational Studies program. He is the author of The Good Life of Teaching.

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