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The impulse to connect is a universal human desire and a critical component of intellectual and emotional maturity, and probably always has been. The challenges of the contemporary world, however, have brought a new urgency to the issue of connection and integration. An early cartoon in the always-insightful Dilbert series captures well one of the defining features of our time. In the cartoon, a character uses a teacup on its side to represent the human brain. An enormous fire hose sprays water in the direction of the cup to illustrate the information overload that characterizes so much of modem life. As one might expect, nothing stays inside the cup, while water sprays everywhere on the page. Today's college student needs more than ever a developed capacity to make sense of this flood of information flowing into his or her consciousness every day. That capacity depends fundamentally on how well she or he can see connections and integrate disparate facts, theories, and contexts to make sense of our complex world. For these reasons, in its new campaign, Liberal Education and America's Promise: Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College, the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is highlighting integrative ability as a key outcome of a quality undergraduate education today.
It is clear that integrative learning is essential to prepare students to deal effectively both with complex issues in their working lives and the challenges facing the broader society today and in the future. As the articles in this issue make clear, after years of compartmentalizing knowledge, leaders across the educational spectrum are renewing efforts to connect fragmented learning....