Curriculum, higher education, and the public good

Abstract

Curriculum change in higher education is an extremely complex process. Influences on the content of what is taught in higher education include new knowledge coming from the various academic disciplines, from the regulatory bodies of many of the professions, from national calls for action, from global challenges, from social movements of the day. This chapter argues that in the search for excellence, engagement and social responsibility that there is no contradiction between responding to local calls for action and global matters. Illustrations of curriculum change which attend to both the local and the global include classroom changes, single university changes, system-wide changes in Canada, Asia, Latin America and New Zealand. We call for more attention to community engaged learning and the creation of central offices for community university engagement.