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Philosophy Teaching & Learning Materials on Professors’ Websites

Individual philosophy instructors often post publicly available resources for students on their websites. Here’s a place to share them. (more…)

Philosophy Labs: Some Recommendations (guest post)

The “lonely-armchair methodology” is one way of approaching philosophy, but it’s not the only way. (more…)

Complementing Defenses of Academic Freedom with Understanding & Advice

As reported earlier this week, there’s a new organization, the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA), that aims to defend faculty whose academic freedom is being threatened. (more…)

Major Philosophy Event for Pre-College Students Held Online This Year

The 2020 Australasian Philosothon—“an event that encourages school students to investigate ethical and philosophical questions in the context of ‘communities of inquiry’”—took place at the end of last month.
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Trump Administration Abandons Plan to Revoke Visas of International Students with Online-Only Schedules

The Trump administration has withdrawn a plan proposed earlier this month to withhold or revoke visas of international students at U.S. schools whose courses have all been moved entirely online. (more…)

Homeland Security To Ban International Students From U.S. If Their Colleges Adopt Online-Only Instruction

The U.S. Department of State will not issue visas to students enrolled in schools and/or programs that are fully online for the fall semester nor will U.S. Customs and Border Protection permit these students to enter the United States. Active students currently in the United States enrolled in such programs must depart the country or take other measures, such as tra..

Facts and Figures About U.S. Philosophy Departments

Humanities Indicators, a project of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences that gathers information about the humanities in the United States, has released a report that includes a variety of details about philosophy departments. (more…)

The Sexual Orientations of First-Year Philosophy Undergrads

What’s the distribution of sexual orientations among first-year undergraduates who are majoring in philosophy? Eric Schwitzgebel (Riverside), Morgan Thompson (Pittsburgh), and Eric Winsberg (South Florida) looked at data from Higher Education Research Institute’s “Freshman Survey” to find out that and other information. (more…)

Free Speech at Oxford (updated with an important correction)

Flying around social media yesterday were cheers that Oxford University had issued a “Statement on the Importance of Free Speech” in response to a motion from the Oxford Student Union allegedly to “ban ‘ableist, classist and misogynist’ reading lists”. (more…)

Being an “Awesome First-Year Graduate Student”

As his son approaches graduate school, Eric Schwitzgebel (University of California, Riverside), has been thinking about advice he can offer him to be an “awesome first-year graduate student”. (more…)

The Philosophy Major Sees Increase in Numbers and Diversity (guest post)

“In the midst of this general sharp decline of the humanities, philosophy’s admittedly small and partial recovery stands out.” (more…)

Students Have Easy Access to Ghostwriters for Hire — What Should Teachers Do?

Recently, Eric Winsberg (South Florida), as an experiment, tweeted, “Who could I pay to write a five-page essay for me that I need to turn in for my philosophy class?” (more…)

Philosophy at Two-Year Colleges

Approximately 90% of community colleges offer courses in philosophy, and those courses are taken by roughly 255,000 to 275,000 students per term, or about 4% of the enrolled students, according to recent research by Humanities Indicators (HI). (more…)

Did I Miss Anything? On Attendance

“Did I miss anything?” It’s a common question from students.
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An Ethics Bowl Inside San Quentin State Prison

In February, in the chapel of San Quentin State Prison, seven philosophy undergraduates from the University of California, Santa Cruz faced off against a group of prison inmates—in an ethics discussion. (more…)

Getting Undergrads to See the Value of Philosophy: A Survey

Andrew Mills, associate professor of philosophy at Otterbein College, is interested in learning about how philosophers get the non-philosophy-majors who tend to populate their classes to see the value of philosophy. (more…)

President of Ireland Bestows Philosophy Award On Student

Michael Higgins, the president of Ireland, addressed students at the first Irish Young Philosopher Awards and called for more philosophy in college curricula, saying that “studying philosophy enables one to live with full capacity in solidarity and in cohesion with others, and that is just so very, very important,” and that “every subject that a university advertise..

Racism at Yale and Philosophy in Real Life

Lolade Siyonbola, a graduate student in African studies at Yale University, took a break from working on a paper Monday night in a common room in her dorm to take a nap. The next thing she knows, she was awakened by a white student who reportedly flipped on the lights, told her she had no right to be there, and who called the campus police to report her. (more…)..

University Reprimands Students Who Warned Others About Philosophy Professor

Two seniors at Fordham University have been officially reprimanded by the school for violating its code of conduct after warning other students about a professor who in the past had complaints of sexual harassment and unprofessional conduct against him substantiated. (more…)

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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A Volunteer “Airbnb” for Short Term Academic Travel

Do you need to attend a conference but are short on travel funds? Do you have a guest room or extra place to sleep in your home that you’d be willing to offer to an early-career academic for a short while? (more…)

Professors Dating Students, Professors Harassing Students

“As for the fact of being a lecturer in bed with undergraduates in particular, there was no possibility of avoiding the charge that this was an abuse of my position.”

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Two Different Schools Each Receive $1.8m Donation To Fund Philosophy Students

Orange Coast College (OCC), a community college in Costa Mesa, California with over 25,000 students, has received a $1.8 million gift to its foundation to “provide scholarships for financially deserving philosophy students.” An equal amount, from the same donor and for the same purposes, has been given to the University of California, Berkeley. (more…)

How to Ask Your Profs for Letters of Recommendation (guest post by Kathryn Norlock)

The following is a guest post * by Kathryn J. Norlock, who holds the Kenneth Mark Drain Chair in Ethics at Trent University, advising undergraduates applying to graduate school, professional schools, and jobs about how to ask their professors for letters of recommendation. It contains advice worth circulating widely. (The post originally appeared at her website.)

Profs: What Do You Regret About Your Time In Graduate School?

In a new interview at What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher?, David Wong (Duke) says of his time in graduate school: (more…)