Education
TagA Mess at Texas A&M
The Texas A&M University System’s Board of Regents took steps yesterday to impose its conservative ideology on college students by prohibiting professors from teaching certain ideas about race and gender. (more…)
The Counterfeiting of the Humanities
In 2023, I attended an annual conference on the humanities. In a conversation over lunch, a program manager for a state humanities council, whose job is to review grant applications for humanities projects in their state, asked me what I did. After I replied that I was a philosophy professor, she responded, “Oh, I didn’t know that philosophy was a humanities .” (mor..
Administrators, Trustees, Students, and the Future of the Liberal Arts
“The tragedy of the contemporary academy is that even when traditional liberal learning clearly wins with students and donors, it loses with those in power.” (more…)
West Point Philosophy Professor Resigns After Trump’s Incursions on Academic Freedom (updated)
“I will be resigning after this semester from my tenured position at West Point after 13 years on the faculty. I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly. I am ashamed to be associated with the academy in its current form.” (more…)
How Students Use and Think About Their Use of AI
An article from New York Magazine has been making the rounds this week. (more…)
Protests & Universities
“A university is special to the extent that it is a place where teaching and learning replace fighting and grandstanding.”
The Benefits of Studying Philosophy: Not Just Selection Effects?
Philosophy majors do well according to various measures of critical reasoning and intellectual habits. But is this an effect of studying philosophy, or an effect of students already talented in these ways choosing to major in philosophy? (more…)
Morton wins Grawemeyer Award in Education
Jennifer Morton, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, has been selected as the winner of the 2022 Grawemeyer Award in Education. (more…)
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…)
Philosophy Majors & High Standardized Test Scores: Not Just Correlation (guest post)
You’ve probably heard that philosophy majors do well on standardized tests for admission to graduate and professional programs, such as the GRE, LSAT, MCATs, and GMATS. You’ve probably also heard the warning that correlation is not causation. (more…)
Arizona’s Legislative Attempt to Recruit Philosophers to Alter State’s K-12 Curriculum
While considering the state budget bill for 2021-22, the Arizona House of Representatives last month approved an amendment to it that would have required the state’s Board of Education to work with the University of Arizona’s Center for the Philosophy of Freedom and others to develop a civic education standards for high schools emphasizing “the blessings of liberty”..
“I can do both these jobs. But can I do them both at once?”
“Is Aristotle a person, or is he a subject that you study?” This is a question from my youngest son, a star, a tap-dancer, almost eight, standing beside me in our living room as I conduct a Zoom class for my undergraduates. (more…)
The Growth of Pre-College Philosophy In Ireland
This past year, nearly 60 high schools in Ireland began offering philosophy courses or introducing philosophy modules into existing courses, and the nation’s president, Michael Higgins, launched the Young Philosopher Awards for primary and secondary school students. (more…)
Why Science Education Needs Philosophy
Many of the young people who attend my classes think that philosophy is a fuzzy discipline that’s concerned only with matters of opinion, whereas science is in the business of discovering facts, delivering proofs, and disseminating objective truths. Furthermore, many of them believe that scientists can answer philosophical questions, but philosophers have no busines..
APA Awards Inaugural Prize in Philosophy of Education
The American Philosophical Association (APA) has announced that the first winner of its Israel Scheffler Prize in Philosophy of Education is Jennifer Morton, assistant professor of philosophy at City College of New York. (more…)
Bringing Philosophy and Business Education Together
A new program at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University combines philosophy and other humanities disciplines with a business education. “Integrated Business and Humanities” is a business major that requires its students to philosophy, language, culture, and other humanities courses. (more…)
New Philosophy TV Show: Ethics Matters
Ethics Matters is a new television show that debuted yesterday on Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s youth-oriented channel, ABC 3. (more…)
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..
“Education is created, not consumed”
Historian David M. Perry takes on the consumer model of college education in an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education entitled “Faculty Members Are not Cashiers.”