The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher

281 Pages·2017·10.21 MB·English

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The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education: Branches
from the Same Tree
DETAILS
280 pages | 6 x 9 | PAPERBACK
ISBN 978-0-309-47061-2 | DOI 10.17226/24988
CONTRIBUTORS
GET THIS BOOK David Skorton and Ashley Bear, Editors; Committee on Integrating Higher
Education in the Arts, Humanities, Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Board
on Higher Education and Workforce; Policy and Global Affairs; National
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The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education: Branches...
THE INTEGRATION OF THE
Humanities and Arts WITH
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Branches FROM THE Same Tree
David Skorton and Ashley Bear, Editors
Committee on Integrating Higher Education in the Arts, Humanities,
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Board on Higher Education and Workforce
Policy and Global Affairs
A Consensus Study Report of
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The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education...
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001
This activity was supported by contracts between the National Academy of Sciences
and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (#11600619), the National Endowment for
the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts (#AH253080-16), and
the National Academy of Sciences Scientists and Engineers for the Future Fund. Any
opinions, fndings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication
do not necessarily refect the views of any organization or agency that provided
support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-47061-2
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-47061-7
Digital Object Identifer: https://doi.org/10.17226/24988
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
2018. The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine in Higher Education: Branches from the Same Tree. Washington, DC: The
National Academies Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.17226/24988.
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The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education...
The National Academy of Sciences was established in 1863 by an Act of
Congress, signed by President Lincoln, as a private, nongovernmental institu-
tion to advise the nation on issues related to science and technology. Members
are elected by their peers for outstanding contributions to research. Dr. Marcia
McNutt is president.
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964 under the char-
ter of the National Academy of Sciences to bring the practices of engineering
to advising the nation. Members are elected by their peers for extraordinary
contributions to engineering. Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr., is president.
The National Academy of Medicine (formerly the Institute of Medicine) was
established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences to
advise the nation on medical and health issues. Members are elected by their
peers for distinguished contributions to medicine and health. Dr. Victor J. Dzau
is president.
The three Academies work together as the National Academies of Sciences,
Engi neering, and Medicine to provide independent, objective analysis and
a dvice to the nation and conduct other activities to solve complex problems
and inform public policy decisions. The National Academies also encourage
education and research, recognize outstanding contributions to knowledge, and
increase public understanding in matters of science, engineering, and medicine.
Learn more about the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
at www.nationalacademies.org.
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Consensus Study Reports published by the National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, and Medicine document the evidence-based consensus on the
study’s statement of task by an authoring committee of experts. Reports typi-
cally include fndings, conclusions, and recommendations based on information
gathered by the committee and the committee’s deliberations. Each report
has been subjected to a rigorous and independent peer-review process and it
represents the position of the National Academies on the statement of task.
Proceedings published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
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contained in proceedings are those of the participants and are not endorsed by
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For information about other products and activities of the National Academies,
please visit www.nationalacademies.org/about/whatwedo.
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COMMITTEE ON INTEGRATING HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE
1
ARTS, HUMANITIES, SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE
DAVID SKORTON (Chair), Secretary, Smithsonian Institution
SUSAN ALBERTINE, Senior Scholar, Association of American Colleges
& Universities
NORMAN AUGUSTINE (NAS/NAE), Retired Chairman and CEO,
Lockheed Martin Corporation
LAURIE BAEFSKY, Executive Director, Arts Engine and the Alliance for
the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru), University of Michigan
KRISTIN BOUDREAU, The Paris and Fletcher Distinguished Professor
of Humanities, Department Head, Humanities and Arts, Worcester
Polytechnic Institute
NORMAN BRADBURN, Senior Fellow, NORC, The Tiffany and
Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, The
University of Chicago
AL BUNSHAFT, Senior Vice President, Global Affairs and Workforce of
the Future, Dassault Systemes’ Americas
GAIL BURD, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Distinguished
Professor, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Cellular and Molecular
Medicine, University of Arizona
EDWARD DERRICK, Independent Consultant
E. THOMAS EWING, Professor of History, Associate Dean, Graduate
Studies, Research, and Diversity, The College of Liberal Arts and
Human Sciences, Virginia Tech
J. BENJAMIN HURLBUT, Associate Professor of Biology and Society,
The School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
PAMELA L. JENNINGS, former Program Offcer, National Science
Foundation CreativeIT Program; CEO, CONSTRUKTS, Inc.
YOUNGMOO KIM, Director, The Expressive and Creative Interaction
Technologies (ExCITe) Center, Associate Professor of Electrical and
Computer Engineering, Drexel University
ROBERT MARTELLO, Associate Dean for Curriculum and Academic
Programs, Professor of the History of Science and Technology, Olin
College
GUNALAN NADARAJAN, Dean and Professor, The Penny W. Stamps
School of Art and Design, The University of Michigan
1
Paul Bevilaqua (NAE), Retired Manager, Advanced Development Programs, Lockheed
Martin Aeronautics Company, resigned from the committee in November 2017.
v
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THOMAS F. NELSON LAIRD, Associate Professor, Higher Education
and Student Affairs Program, and Director, Center for Postsecondary
Research, Indiana University Bloomington
LYNN PASQUERELLA, President, The Association of American Colleges
& Universities
SUZANNA ROSE, Founding Associate Provost, Offce to Advance
Women, Equity, and Diversity, Professor of Psychology and Women’s
and Gender Studies, Florida International University
BONNIE THORNTON DILL, Dean, College of Arts and Humanities and
Professor of Women’s Studies, The University of Maryland
LAURA VOSEJPKA, Founding Dean, College of Sciences and Liberal
Arts, Kettering University
LISA M. WONG, Co-Director, The Arts and Humanities Initiative,
Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Study Staff
ASHLEY BEAR, Study Director
IRENE NGUN, Research Associate
THOMAS RUDIN, Director, Board on Higher Education and Workforce
ADRIANA COUREMBIS, Financial Offcer
JAY LABOV, Senior Advisor for Education and Communication
J.D. TALASEK, Director of Cultural Programs
KELLYANN JONES-JAMTGAARD, Christine Mirzayan Science and
Technology Policy Graduate Fellow
ELIZABETH GARBEE, Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology
Policy Graduate Fellow
AUSTEN APPLEGATE, Senior Program Assistant
Consultants
STEVE OLSON, Writer
MATTHEW MAYHEW, William Ray and Marie Adamson Flesher
Professor of Educational Administration, The Ohio State University
HANNAH STEWART-GAMBINO, Professor of Government & Law and
International Affairs, Lafayette College
JENN STROUD-ROSSMANN, Professor of Mechanical Engineering,
Lafayette College
vi
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The Integration of the Humanities and Arts with Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Higher Education...
Preface
American higher education has for generations been the envy of the
world. Whether because of the enormous output of research, scholarship,
and creative activity or the great diversity of offerings—running the gamut
from community colleges to liberal arts colleges, research universities,
conservatories, technical schools, and many other categories—American
colleges and universities are widely admired and emulated across the globe.
In tracing the history of American higher education, we fnd much
to be proud of, but we also see over the past few decades a growing ten-
sion between the broad and integrated education commonly referred to as
liberal education and the increasing specialization in higher education as
individual disciplines and administrative structures drive a fragmentation of
curricula. This tension between broad, integrated education and specialized,
disciplinary studies has heightened during periods of economic challenge,
particularly since the Great Recession that began in 2008. Students and
parents increasingly have focused their aspirations and plans on a vocation-
ally driven approach, emphasizing felds where immediate post-graduation
employment seems more certain and more remunerative.
Ironically, as this movement toward narrower, disciplinary education
has progressed inexorably, many employers—even, and, in fact, especially
in “high tech” areas—have emphasized that learning outcomes associated
with integrated education, such as critical thinking, communication, team-
work, and abilities for lifelong learning, are more, not less, desirable. With
the enormous strides in technology, including artifcial intelligence, machine
learning, robotics, and communications, graduates will need such transfer-
able and uniquely human skills to be able to adaptively and continuously
vii
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viii PREFACE
learn to work with, and alongside, new technologies. Further, each person
entering the job market today will look forward not only to several jobs,
but also several careers, during her working life. All of these factors have
led to the expectation that current generations entering the workforce may,
for the frst time in recent American history, face a more uncertain future
than their parents’ generation.
Faculty and administrators, who are concerned that an education
focused on a single discipline will not best prepare graduates for the chal-
lenges and opportunities presented by work, life, and citizenship in the 21st
century, are advocating for an approach to education that moves beyond
the general education requirements found at almost all institutions, to an
approach to higher education that intentionally integrates knowledge in
the arts, humanities, physical and life sciences, social sciences, engineering,
technology, mathematics, and the biomedical disciplines. In this approach,
which we refer to in this report simply as “integration,” professors help
students understand the connections among the disciplines and emphasize
the point made by Einstein that all disciplines and forms of inquiry are
“branches from the same tree.” Extending this metaphor, advocates of
integration see all human knowledge as both fundamentally connected,
a network of branches arising from a trunk made up of human curiosity,
passion, and drive, but also generative, as new branches split off and grow
from old branches, extending into new spaces or coming in contact with
other branches in new ways.
Against this backdrop, the Board on Higher Education and Work-
force (BHEW) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine conducted a study focused on better understanding the impact
of an integrated educational approach on students. Specifcally, the com-
mittee was charged with “examining the evidence behind the assertion
that educational programs that mutually integrate learning experiences in
the humanities and arts with science, technology, engineering, math, and
medicine (STEMM) lead to improved educational and career outcomes for
undergraduate and graduate students.” To be clear, our task was neither to
reject the disciplines, which this committee sees as vital sources of exper-
tise, creativity, and innovation, nor to argue that an integrative approach is
superior to more established models of general education. Rather, our task
was to examine what the existing evidence can tell us about the impact on
students of a new, and in many ways old, integrative approach to higher
education that many faculty believe will serve to effectively prepare students
for work, life, and citizenship in the 21st century.
To accomplish this challenging study, the National Academies assem-
bled a committee composed of leaders and scholars in higher education
and industry with expertise in the arts, humanities, social sciences, natural
sciences, engineering, and medicine—and the intersections among these
disciplines—whose affliations refected the diversity of types of institu-
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PREFACE ix
tions in American higher education. I have learned an enormous amount
from these colleagues and, now, friends, and am indebted to them for
their tireless efforts, knowledge, insights, and savvy. The study was also
made possible by the superb professionals from the National Academies,
and the leadership of the Study Director, Ashley Bear, and the Director of
the BHEW, Tom Rudin, as well as the research efforts of Irene Ngun and
Kellyann Jones-Jamtgaard, and the logistical expertise of Austen Applegate.
To inform our deliberations, we heard from experts from beyond
the committee, held public sessions in three cities, commissioned litera-
ture reviews, and heard from faculty across the country who submitted
responses to a “Dear Colleague” letter asking for evidence and input from
the broader higher education community.
WHAT DID WE FIND?
Assessing student learning outcomes across the breadth of American
higher education is a daunting task, confounded by the number and types
of institutions, the broadly varying backgrounds of the students matricu-
lating, and, importantly, the fact that curricular decisions are—appropri-
ately—in the hands of local faculty members, not subject to any broad,
national consensus except in the case of accreditation of specifc disciplines.
For these reasons, as well as the lack of agreement on the most effective
ways to assess student learning outcomes, we found that large, controlled,
randomized testing of the hypothesis that integrated education would lead
to educational and employment benefts are rare and likely to remain so.
Nonetheless, we found abundant narrative and anecdotal evidence, some
evidence from research studies, and, very importantly, a broad, national
groundswell of interest in developing approaches to integrated education.
Though causal evidence on the impact of integration on students is limited,
it is this committee’s consensus opinion that further effort be expeditiously
exerted to develop and disseminate a variety of approaches to integrated
education and that further research on the impact of such programs and
courses on students be supported and conducted.
Ultimately, the decision will rest with the faculty of American higher
education. We hope that our faculty colleagues will take the time to exam-
ine this report and will thereby join with us in further exploring the value
and role of integrated education. We believe the future of our nation will
be affected by our collective decisions.

David J. Skorton
Chair
Committee on Integrating Higher Education in the Arts, Humanities,
Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
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