Supplying an insightful introduction to current trends in general education reform, this second edition of General Education Essentials: A Guide to College Faculty gives an important, timely overview of general education curricular design.

A resource for faculty members, academic leaders and policy makers, this publication provides clear principles and guidelines for ensuring that general education fosters essential learning outcomes and key proficiencies important for long-term success and flourishing; that it enriches student learning in the major; and that it prepares students to tackle the kinds of complex problems they will inevitably confront in work, civil society, and their own lives.

This publication calls for a re-envisioning of general education with clear, purposeful pathways for all students, allowing them to actively demonstrate their learning through high-impact practices and teaching strategies that are transferable across disciplines, departments, institutions, and state systems. It addresses student success in terms of both college completion and achievement of essential twenty-first-century learning outcomes, including those articulated in LEAP and in Lumina Foundation's Degree Qualifications Profile. American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).

Read: Forward, and Introduction pages 1-9

The authors argue that colleges and universities need to be comprehensively redesigned in order to educate millions more qualified students while leveraging the complementarities between discovery and accessibility. This book examines the historical development of American higher education--the first four waves--and describes the emerging standard of institutions that will transform the field. What must emerge in this Fifth Wave of universities, Crow and Dabars posit, are institutions that are responsive to the needs of students, focused on access, embedded in their regions, and committed to solving global problems. The Fifth Wave in American higher education, Crow and Dabars write, comprises an emerging league of colleges and universities that aspires to accelerate positive social outcomes through the seamless integration of world-class knowledge production with cutting-edge technological innovation.