Liberal Arts

Presentations The Liberal Arts The Long Road

Indicators of Excellence in the Liberal Arts

The following reflections are offered in the context of the opening colloquium of the College and Beyond II: Liberal Arts & Life series. #collegeandbeyondii The current pandemic is an apocalypse — an uncovering. It reveals at once…

Christopher LongSeptember 15, 2020

Aerial view of the center of MSU campus with intersecting pathways and trees.

Dean The Long Road

Catalyst of Collaboration

On September 26, 2019, I had the opportunity to address the Michigan State University President’s Council, which includes the Deans Council and the Executive Leadership of the University, about the values-based strategic planning process we…

Christopher LongOctober 7, 2019

Presentation: Academic The Liberal Arts Vita

AGLS Keynote – Practicing the Arts of Liberty

At the heart of my keynote address to the 2018 Association of General and Liberal Studies in Pittsburgh, PA is this idea: The intellectual and ethical habits we need to transform higher education are the…

Christopher LongSeptember 22, 2018

Editorial Journal of General Education Vita

The Liberal Arts Endeavor: Thick Collegiality and General Education

In this introduction to issues 1-2 of volume 66 of the Journal of General Education, Sophia Pavlos and I articulate of the meaning and importance of thick collegiality for the Journal of General Education and…

Christopher LongJuly 26, 2018

Dean The Liberal Arts

The Liberal Arts at the Heart of the MSU Land Grant Mission

When Ryan Kilcoyne and I met late last year to plan the 2017 MSU College of Arts & Letters Dean’s Report, we wanted to show what we have long talked about: situating the liberal arts…

Christopher LongJune 26, 2017

Dean The Liberal Arts The Long Road

To Teach and Delight

The last two weeks of March this year brought sadness twice over to the College of Arts & Letters. On March 18, 2017, we lost Anna Norris, a beloved professor of French Literature who taught…

Christopher LongApril 14, 2017

Civic Life Education The Liberal Arts The Long Road

“…No Arts; No Letters; No Society…”

In early November last year, I returned to the Leviathan. In it, Thomas Hobbes grapples with the question of sovereignty and considers the human condition in a state of nature in which there is: …no…

Christopher LongMarch 17, 2017

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts

Open Letter on the Executive Order on Immigration

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff in the College of Arts & Letters: Many of you have written to express your concern about the executive order signed by the President of the United States on January…

Christopher LongJanuary 30, 2017

Presentation: Interactive Presentations The Liberal Arts The Long Road Vita

Tweeting the Liberal Arts @Muhlenberg #MCLA16

In his inaugural address as president of the college he founded, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg spoke of the values that animate the institution: "We do not regard an education as complete that aims only at improving the intellect,”…

Christopher LongFebruary 1, 2016

Education The Liberal Arts The Long Road

A Liberal Arts Response to #Ferguson

The liberal arts have always given us powerful ways to study and understand the world we inhabit. The events in Ferguson call for a liberal arts approach because they are multidimensional. They require us to…

Christopher LongMarch 29, 2015

The Liberal Arts The Long Road

The Liberal Arts and Sciences and the 21st Century Land Grant Mission

At the beginning of the Physics, Aristotle captures something of the essence of the liberal arts and sciences as an endeavor. This path from the surface of things to a deeper understanding of their nature…

Christopher LongFebruary 16, 2015

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road

Butterflies Pinned

In the winter of 1988, during my freshman year at Wittenberg University, I took Professor Warren Copeland’s Introduction to Ethics: Racism course. This course and its sister, Advanced Ethics: Racism, which I took the following…

Christopher LongJanuary 19, 2015

The Liberal Arts The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

Ike Advocates for #PSUGenEd at Penn State Centennial Commencement

Fifty-nine years ago today, on June 9, 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower addressed the centennial graduating class of Penn State, where his brother, Milton, was president of the university. Two things were on the President's mind…

Christopher LongJune 9, 2014

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

General Education Reform at Penn State

The Information Technology unit at Penn State holds IT Matters breakfasts a few times a year. This semester I joined colleagues on stage to talk about my work and how it intersects with IT at…

Christopher LongApril 15, 2014

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

#PSUGenEd and the Research Endeavor

We at Penn State are engaged in an intense, ongoing and, in my view, very healthy dialogue about General Education reform. In order to integrate the research endeavor into the undergraduate experience, we ought to…

Christopher LongApril 10, 2014

The Administrative Life The Liberal Arts The Long Road

Deliberating GenEd Reform at Penn State

One of the values we hope to integrate into the new General Education curriculum at Penn State is the recognition of the importance of public deliberation. Deliberating in public is difficult; it requires certain intellectual…

Christopher LongJanuary 28, 2014

The Administrative Life The Long Road

General Education Reform and the Art of Listening

By the time we took the stage as the final panel of the day, we had heard the voices of expert educators, faculty, administrators, employers and alums speak about the value and importance of general…

Christopher LongNovember 3, 2013

The Liberal Arts The Long Road

Music, Philosophy and the Liberal Arts

On the day he was to die, we find Socrates writing poetry. This is very strange because Socrates generally chose not to write, opting instead to engage in dialogue with those he encountered in and…

Christopher LongSeptember 9, 2013

Education The Liberal Arts The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

Beginning Again with the Liberal Arts

The rhythm of the academic year returns us again to the beginning. State College is charged with energy as parents drop off their children, some for the first time, and students turn and return to…

Christopher LongAugust 24, 2013

Education The Liberal Arts The Long Road

Speaking about the Liberal Arts in China

NANJING, China - One of the challenges we face in higher education in the United States is how to ensure the academic success of the many new international students from China our universities are welcoming…

Christopher LongMay 21, 2013

Presentation: Academic Presentation: Other Presentations Vita

Putting the Liberal Arts into Practice @NewmanU

The Liberal Arts are not so much a set of disciplines to be studied as they are a set of habits to be practiced. This is the central point and main theme around which my…

Christopher LongMarch 26, 2013

Education The Liberal Arts The Long Road

The Humanities, Stitched

If, as Michael Bérubé suggested today in his Chronicle of Higher Education article "The Humanities, Unraveled," the situation in the humanities is "a seamless garment of crisis: If you pull on any one thread, the…

Christopher LongFebruary 18, 2013

Presentation: Academic Presentations Vita

Keynote Address: Liberal Arts and Politics

From its earliest articulation in Ancient Greek thinking, the first principle and ultimate end of an education in the liberal arts has always been to live an excellent human life. Because, however, human life can…

Christopher LongNovember 27, 2012

Education Technology The Long Road The Undergraduate Experience

Liberal Arts Voices Hanging Out on Google

Student Panel at LASTS11 Originally uploaded by LAUSatPSU On Wednesday, September 28th at 4pm eastern, we in the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Studies office will take another step out into the great technological unknown by recording…

Christopher LongSeptember 27, 2011

Presentation: Other Presentations Vita

Liberal Arts in a Time of Crisis

Pharmakon Originally uploaded by cplong11 STATE COLLEGE, PA - These remarks were delivered at the 2011 Symposium of the Center for American Literary Studies: Crisis? Whose Crisis? What Crisis? Imagine that you are a graduate…

Christopher LongApril 22, 2011

Presentation: Academic Presentations Vita

Designs on e-Learning

This September I will be presenting at the Designs on e-Learning Conference held here at Penn State. My presentation is entitled Blogging and Podcasting the Liberal Arts (the link is to the blog post on which…

Christopher LongJuly 14, 2008

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