Public Access and the Liberal Arts

The Narrating the Liberal Arts (NAPLA) project is a digital humanities initiative that invites students to collect and publish stories that capture the identities, cultures, histories, and environments related to a public liberal arts education. The NAPLA project documents the 1944 G.I. Bill and public access to higher education and, later, increasing public access to the liberal arts. Students are creating online chronicles of the life experiences of students, alumni, staff and faculty at the campuses at which they are studying—digital resources that capture the history and the prospects of the public liberal arts. As designers and editors of these digital archives, the students are exploring their place in higher education by making visible the history of the liberal arts at the institution in which they are studying.

This multi-campus, team-taught course is part of the COPLACDigital initiative features digital fluencies with the research-based, critical thinking approach of public liberal arts institutions, The multi-campus, undergraduate research seminars help advance students who are adaptable and prepared for graduate school and the working world.

The Women of Keene State

Foundation of Knowledge at SUNY Geneseo

University of North Carolina Asheville: An Educational Narrative