Why do some students become Philosophy majors? Survey questions sought.

My department is  working on a project for the department to try to get more systematic information about why undergrads become philosophy majors (and why students who might, don't).  As one component of that project, we're planning to conduct two online surveys—one of current philosophy majors and another of students who recently took introductory-level philosophy classes.  Obviously we're particularly interested in why women and members of certain racial minorities become majors at lower rates than men, and members of other racial groups. Thing is --being a philosophy department we are not over-endowed with expertise on how to frame or conduct surveys. We are going to enlist the help of experts but my colleague who is heading up the effort asked my department for initial suggestions of survey questions, and I thought, well, why not crowd-source it? Its entirely possible that other departments have already done this successfully, and it is quite likely that some of our readers will have useful suggestions of questions.  So -- suggest ahead.

CFP: APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy

The Fall 2015 issue of the APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy will be devoted to the special topic of teaching philosophy in non-traditional settings, and we encourage readers to submit papers on this topic. We are interested in papers on pedagogical information and insights, on the particular intellectual challenges these settings present, and especially, on what you have learned about teaching philosophy, and about philosophy, from your experiences.
The following guidelines for submissions should be followed:

• The deadline is March 2, 2015.
•  Papers should be between 10-24 double spaced pp.
• All papers should be sent to the editors electronically. The author’s name, the title of            the paper, and full mailing address should appear on a separate page. Nothing that          identifies the author or his or her institution should appear within the body or within the    notes of the paper. The title of the paper should appear on the top of the paper itself.
• Authors should adhere to the production guidelines that are available from the APA. For example, in writing your paper to disk, please do not use your word processor’s footnote or endnote function; all notes must be added manually at the end of the paper. This rule is extremely important, for it makes formatting the papers for publication much easier.

Contributions should be sent electronically to guest editor Katheryn Doran, Hamilton College via Carolyn Mascaro (cmascaro@hamilton.edu), with “APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy submission” in the subject line. After an initial vetting, those papers that will be considered further will be forwarded to the general editors Tziporah Kasachkoff, The Graduate Center, CUNY (tkasachkoff@yahoo.com), and Eugene Kelly, New York Institute of Technology (ekelly@.nyit.edu), as well as to the other Newsletter reviewers Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University (robert.talisse@vanderbilt.edu), and Andrew Wengraf (andrew@welch-wengraf.fsnet.uk). The papers will be blind-reviewed at all stages.