Defining Learning Expectations

By Anne Hyde. Giants can move. So can venerable, cautious scholarly organizations like the American Historical Association. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Kevin Carey of the New America Foundation asked "Who Will Hold Colleges Accountable?" As a professor at Colorado College, and faculty chair of the AHA’s Tuning Project, I can answer: we will. In a moment where college education and the value it provides students, their families, and American society in general seems continuously under attack, the American Historical Association has been quietly helping its members define and promote the value of history. Carey’s piece, pointing out the outdated notion of credit hours that grant students "credit" and eventually degrees for the act of sitting in chairs or staring at screens, thoughtfully calls for scholarly societies to "define and update what it means to be proficient in a field." Read more...