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If You’re An Egalitarian, How Come You Teach At An Elite College?

The title of this post, a riff on G.A. Cohen’s If You’re An Egalitarian, How Come You’re So Rich?, is one way Jonny Thakkar (Swarthmore) described to me the question at the heart of his recent essay, “Elite Education,” in The Point. (more…)

First-Generation College Students and Philosophy

A philosophy professor has embarked on a project to understand and address issues faced by philosophy students who are first-generation college students or members of other traditionally underrepresented groups, and she could use your help. (more…)

Elizabethtown College To Eliminate Philosophy Major

Elizabethtown College, a private college in Pennsylvania, is planning to eliminate its philosophy major.

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The “PC College Students vs. Free Speech” Narrative is Baloney

Overall public support for free speech is rising over time, not falling. People on the political right are less supportive of free speech than people on the left. College graduates are more supportive than non-graduates.

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Robot Takes Philosophy of Love Course

William Barry, associate professor of philosophy at Notre Dame de Namur University and director of its “Virtual Learning Lab,” taught a new kind of student in his philosophy of love course this past term: a robot.

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Sharp Declines in Philosophy, History, & Language Majors Since 2010 (guest post by Eric Schwitzgebel)

The following is a guest post * by Eric Schwitzgebel, professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside. It first appeared at his blog, The Splintered Mind. (more…)

Recent APA Grants Fund Projects on Outreach and Diversity

The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced the winners of several of its grants for the 2017-2018 academic year. All of the funded projects appear to be aimed at growing philosophy’s constituency, focusing especially on younger students (including high schoolers) and members of groups traditionally underrepresented in professional philosophy in the U..

51 Years Teaching Philosophy Is Not Good Enough, says Accreditor

Professor Katherine Butler has taught philosophy at Wayne State College (WSC) in Wayne, Nebraska, for 51 years. It doesn’t look like she’ll be doing it again, though. It’s not that she is retiring. Rather, Higher Learning Commission, the accrediting agency that evaluates the school, has issued new guidelines that disqualify her from teaching philosophy. (more…)

Teach Everyone Logic?

Clifford argued that we are morally responsible not merely for what we do and say, but also for what we believe… When we show ourselves to be uncritical and careless with own our beliefs, we implicitly invite others to do the same. And, perhaps more obviously, we invite others to fool us. We encourage dishonesty and deception. Each time we believe something that ..

Launching a PPE Program

A philosopher writes in seeking advice on starting a new program at his college:

I teach at a Catholic small liberal arts college. My department teaches philosophy in the core and offers a minor. I’m thinking of pushing for an integrated major common to many colleges and universities called PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics). I need to gather evidence, tes..

Summer 2017 Philosophy Programs for Undergraduates

Are you organizing a philosophy program for undergraduates for the Summer of 2017? If so, please share information—dates, location, theme, website or email contact, etc.—in the comments here. (more…)

Starting and Maintaining a College Philosophy Club

A professor of philosophy at a U.S. college writes in with a request for information about undergraduate philosophy clubs:

My university currently does not have a philosophy club. For various reasons my department thinks such a club would be a good idea, and I, perhaps foolishly, volunteered to help get it started. (more…)

A Surprisingly Overlooked Gap in Philosophy (guest post by Bob Fischer)

Bob Fischer is an assistant professor of philosophy at Texas State University. In a brief conversation over the summer, he shared with me an observation about a problem teaching philosophy to college students and I thought, “no, that can’t be correct.” But he was right, and he was doing something about it. In the following guest post, he explains the problem and how..

Offend Responsibly

The thing I always like to stress is that although academics have the right to offend, they must do so responsibly, and they must to be able to defend the origin of the academic freedom of the right to offend and show that they exercise it in a way that’s as responsible as possible. Sometimes this means, if there is something on your syllabus that troubles a student..

Modern Universities Have Always Had Safe Spaces

…Academic freedom is the core meaning, the core institutional life, of freedom of debate and freedom of inquiry in the university setting. And one thing that’s notable about academic freedom as I’ve just labeled it is that it creates safe spaces. The people who are doing the work on an ongoing basis be they students, teachers, or researchers, don’t have to spend a..

Two Philosophers’ Views on the Point of College

This week, two philosophers—Kwame Anthony Appiah (NYU) in the New York Times Magazine and Gary Gutting (Notre Dame) in The Chronicle of Higher Education—have discussed the point of a college education.

Appiah observes that there are “two distinct visions of higher education contend throughout our classrooms and campuses.”

One is “Utility University,” which..

Philosophers Object to Heythrop’s Closing (updated)

The governing board of Heythrop College, a constituent college of the University of London whose mission is “to serve society through philosophy and theology,” met in late June and concluded that “the College in its current form, as a constituent college of the University of London, will come to an end in 2018, although its mission and work will not.” Now, according..

Attending to Attendance

Related to yesterday’s post about the differences between professors and teachers is a detailed analysis by Michael LaBossiere (Florida A&M) of his students’ attendance in his courses. He has long taken attendance and now makes use of Blackboard analytics for gathering information and “generating a picture of why students fail my classes.” He writes:

Not surpris..

The Difference Between Teachers and Professors

First, I am your professor, not your teacher. There is a difference. Up to now your instruction has been in the hands of teachers, and a teacher’s job is to make sure that you learn… However, things are very different for a university professor. It is no part of my job to make you learn. At university, learning is your job — and yours alone. My job is to lead you..