Cognitive and Affective Dissonance: Turn IT up; put IT in Play

Dear Colleagues.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium. (W.B. Yeats, sample)

A. The essence of a humanities education — reading the great
literary and philosophical works and coming “to grips with
the question of what living is for” — may become “a great
luxury that many cannot afford.” NYTIMES 2/25/09

B. AACU Diversity and Democracy
Volume 12 | Number 1 | Winter 2009

Assessing Higher Education's Advancement Toward a New Vision of Society
By Sylvia Hurtado, director of the Higher Education Research Institute
University of California-Los Angeles

Envision a local and global society that advances
social progress: a world that is equitable,
interdependent, sustainable, innovative,
and economically secure, and that
supports the welfare of all.

In order to enact this vision, educators must
equip students with the values, skills, and
knowledge to become complex thinkers
and ethical decision-makers in a society
currently plagued with conflict and inequality.

Assessment of a broad range of outcomes
that reflect student learning is critical to
this project. READ MORE Assessing diversity
outcomes, particularly those related to the
development of personal and social responsibility,
challenges educators seeking to demonstrate the
positive effects of liberal education.

This issue of Diversity & Democracy examines new
projects and practices that are developing compelling
evidence of students' intercultural, global, and civic
learning.

C. I’m the only one here experiencing cognitive
and affective dissonance from the sound of this—
I bet you 5 dollars. We might could assess ourselves
(local foodback) to see how much of a gap anyone feels
(visceral: gut wrench) between the first statement (A)
and the second (B): the always precarious status of
“humanities education” as a liberal art (coming to
grips with the question of what living is for) on the
one hand…

And then on the other hand: the industrialized
institutional preoccupation with assessing a broad
range of outcomes to give evidence of and
demonstrate the positive effects of liberal
education to equip students with values,
skills, and knowledge to become complex
thinkers and ethical decision-makers
unlike in passed times.


Thinking & Thinking & Thinking..Assessing outcomes
about the Great Literary &.........and measurable aims
Philosophical works so.....................and objectives in.
as to grapple with.......................... generating complex
the Question of...............................thinkers & ethical
What Living....................................decision-makers
is for.