By Karen Seidman. As countries compete for the most engineers and scientists, and the greatest technological and medical breakthroughs, and as funding to universities is being cut, the need for humanities in higher education is being questioned.
At a forum at McGill University on Tuesday debating the relevance of humanities education, about 40 academics and students who gathered in the arts building lamented the economic realities of the world today that pressures students to take programs that lead directly to jobs.
Yet enrolment in McGill’s humanities programs — which typically include literature, history, languages, the arts, philosophy and religion — has been steady, or increasing slightly, said Maggie Kilgour, who organized the event. More...

By Chad Orzel. As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about liberal education and the failure modes thereof, I thought I should try to do something constructive and make suggestions regarding how you might go about a “poetry for physicists” kind of thing. After all, one of the things I find intensely frustrating about a lot of “crisis in ____” discussions is the lack of specific suggestions, so throwing out a “here’s a problem, good luck with that” post would be suboptimal behavior on my part. This required some reflection on the question of just what I got out of my “liberal arts” classes back in the day– what ideas and skills I picked up that I find useful today. More...

One more exiciting EUROCLIO Annual Conference coming.This time in beautiful Ohrid. Register now!
HISTORY EDUCATION BEYOND BORDERS - HOW CAN WE SHARE OUR CULTURAL HERITAGE?
Registration for the 21st EUROCLIO Annual Conference Professional Development and Training Course is OPEN now. GRANTS are available.

EUROCLIO is happy to launch registrations for its Spring Annual Conference which takes place between 31 March and 6 April in the Macedonian city of Ohrid in the heart of the Balkans. Grants are available for educators from eligible countries. These grants will cover your costs to travel and to stay during the conference. All you need to do is contact your national agency and apply before 17/09/2013.

You are invited to come and experience a professional training course with around 200 history, heritage, citizenship educators from all over Europe and beyond, explore rich & challenging history of Balkans, engage yourself in important discussions around multiperspective approach to History and Heritage in Republic of Macedonia and History Education beyond Borders in Europe and the World and address the shared and layered
heritage around Ohrid locally and in the wider region.

…and this is not all!

Explore the rich cultural and historical heritage of Bitola, Struga and Ohrid, experience the warm welcoming by history educators of Macedonia, enjoy amazing food and let the lovely spring weather embrace you.

Steps to register:

1) CLICK to submit your registration

2) Contact your national agency, use below reference numbers and apply for grants:

• Comenius (For secondary level educators) Ref. Num: NL-2014-356-001
• Grundtvig (For Adult educators) Ref. Num: NL-2014-357-001

Deadline for grants is 17 September 2013. 

Visit the conference page for the programme & more practical information. For questions contact Aysel Gojayeva- aysel@euroclio.eu.

INTCESS14- INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES will be held in Istanbul (Turkey), on the 3rd 4th and 5th of February 2014 is an interdisciplinary international conference that invites academics, independent scholars and researchers from around the world to meet and exchange the latest ideas and discuss issues concerning all fields of Education and Social Sciences.