UPDATES
The inaugural Institute has been rescheduled for July 25–29, 2021. Details about the 2022 Institute—including a call for participants and the nomination deadline—will be announced in fall 2021.
On July 27, 2020, CIC hosted a special webinar—"Teaching Philosophy in Troubled Times"—for faculty members who were nominated to participate in the inaugural Institute.
A recording of the webinar is now available. During the webinar, Ned Hall (Harvard University) discusses the unique challenges and enduring value of studying philosophy in times of crisis. Meghan Sullivan (University of Notre Dame) describes the evolution of Notre Dame’s innovative
"God and the Good Life" course. And Paul Blaschko (University of Notre Dame) offers a practical workshop on designing or transforming philosophy courses for an online or hybrid format—with a focus on engaging students and making the best use of digital technologies. The webinar will be useful to faculty members in many liberal arts disciplines, not just philosophy.
At a time when so many voices clamor that a college education must be “practical”—and allege that philosophy is anything
but practical—persuading students to take philosophy courses at most colleges and universities can be a daunting task.
New Currents in Teaching Philosophy is designed to help philosophy instructors at smaller liberal arts colleges address this high-stakes challenge. Philosophers know that a successful immersion in philosophy offers undergraduate students a distinctive experience. Philosophy trains them to be exceptionally clear, precise, and rigorous thinkers and writers. It instills the skills and habits of mind that students need to identify and navigate the deep sources of uncertainty and ambiguity that pervade modern life. It also provides a model for successful argument and communication across profound differences of opinion. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer students at smaller institutions are reaping the intellectual and personal benefits of philosophy.
New Currents in Teaching Philosophy will help meet this challenge by bringing together the most dedicated philosophy instructors from CIC member institutions and introducing them to a group of highly innovative, field-tested philosophy courses, through intensive, collaborative sessions led by the original course designers. The broad topics include: teaching current moral and social issues; philosophy as a guide to “the good life”; the intersection of mind and machine (where epistemology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence collide); and theories of justice in a world of inequalities. Additional sessions will be devoted to specific pedagogical approaches that faculty members can apply to many philosophy courses.
Participants will leave the Institute with new knowledge from burgeoning fields of philosophical inquiry, novel strategies for teaching philosophy, and concrete plans for new innovative courses. The ultimate goal is to attract more students to philosophy courses, recruit more minors and majors, sustain and strengthen the philosophy programs at independent colleges and universities—and push back against a blinkered view of philosophy’s value.
This initiative has been made possible through generous support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with supplemental funding from the
National Endowment for the HumanitiesAny views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities..