This resource illustrates how undergraduate courses and programs that integrate the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences with applied approaches and pre-professional training help to demonstrate the value of a broad-based education to skeptical students.
Read the Report
The report consists of 12 in-depth case studies and 20 brief profiles of initiatives that combine learning from disparate fields of study to demonstrate the value of a broad-based liberal arts curriculum. These case studies and profiles are organized into the following sections: (1) integrative approaches to general education; (2) integrative degree programs, which are subdivided into problem-oriented and profession-oriented models; and (3) integrative infrastructure that supports cross-disciplinary learning. This report was researched and produced thanks to a generous grant from the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.
Read the ReportMethodology
In Fall 2022, we distributed a survey to deans and associate deans at 857 institutions, inviting them to share undergraduate courses or programs on their campuses that integrate learning from distinct areas of study and the outcomes they had observed. We contacted public universities in every state and minority-serving institutions of all types. The survey ultimately yielded 61 responses. Given that we only sought responses from those who had integrative undergraduate initiatives to share, it is not surprising that our response rate was significantly lower than response rates for our national surveys on broader topics. These survey responses clearly indicated that these integrative curricula deepened students’ appreciation for a broad liberal arts curriculum. To supplement the survey sample, we combed through relevant publications, conference programs, and lists of projects funded through the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) and Mellon Foundation grant lines to identify additional integrative initiatives. Ultimately, our survey and additional outreach efforts surfaced a wide variety of effective models.
We followed up on these leads by interviewing project directors and soliciting enrollment data to learn more about how they had built successful initiatives. In addition, seven case studies feature student survey data collected by NHA in partnership with project directors that illuminate how and why these initiatives are helping students appreciate the value of liberal arts disciplines, integrative learning, and a broad-based curriculum.
Additional Resources
This report builds on our previous research on undergraduate humanities recruitment, applying the methodologies we’ve developed to forward the liberal arts more broadly. Our 2024 report Expanding Access to Undergraduate Humanities Education: Models and Strategies identifies strategies for attracting a diverse population of students to the humanities. Strategies for Recruiting Students to the Humanities: A Comprehensive Resource (2021) provides a broader overview of all the ways faculty and administrators are working to attract more students to the humanities writ large. Our companion to that report, Strategies for Recruiting Students to the Humanities: Leveraging Scholarly Society Resources (2022), highlights initiatives that help make the case for studying specific humanities disciplines developed by scholarly societies. Finally, Humanities Recruitment Survey: Challenges and Audiences (2020) distills takeaways from the quantitative data collected through our initial survey.
