100 ideas to improve higher ed

The National Association of Scholars, a conservative-leaning organization of academics, has published what it declares to be '100 great ideas for higher ed.' I'd be interested to hear reactions. Many of them strike me as focusing on superficial matters — sure, if we instate faculty dress codes, eliminate the journalism major, and offer courses on etymology and academic freedom, then all will be well in higher education! More seriously though: Are there some good ideas here? And which of these ideas are truly awful?

Self Discovery and Transformation

Somewhat inspired by this article on the self in self-help, I'm crafting a freshman seminar tentatively entitled
"Self: Discovery and Transformation." I want to include philosophical, literary, and some "pop" readings.  I'm thinking I'll structure it around: discovery of the self, the self in action, the embedded self, and transforming the self. I have a list of readings that is way too long as it is:

·        St. Augustine, Confessions

·        Descartes, Rene, Selections from the Meditations

·        Hume, David, Selections from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

·        Perry,   A Dialogue On Personal Identity And Immortality

·        Frankfurt, Harry, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of  a Person”

·        Velleman, David, “So It Goes”

·        Taylor, Charles, “Responsibility for Self”

·        DuBois, W.E., Selections from The Souls of Black Folk

·        Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

·        Beauvoir, Simone, Selections from The Second Sex

·        Walpola, Rahula, Selections from What the Buddha Taught

·        Dennett, Daniel “Self as the Narrative Center of Gravity

·        Nietzsche, Selections

·        Nehamas, Selections from Nietzsche: Life as Literature

·        Sartre, Jean-Paul, Nausea

·        Gilbert, Margaret, Eat Pray Love

I would appreciate any other additions/suggestions/thoughts about this reading list. It should be accessible to first semester first-year college students and the class is linked to a composition section, so the focus will be on college writing. 

The ethics of teaching

The long awaited International Encyclopedia of Ethics has just been published.  This looks like it will be an excellent resource. Readers of this blog may be particularly interested in my entry on the ethics of teaching.

Teaching Gun Control

Has anyone done at least a section in a course on gun control? If so, what did you do? How did discussion go? What guidance can you offer for what to expect, what to look out for, and so forth? What readings or other materials are good to use?

'Can you explain the lecture to me?'

A colleague of mine recently told me about an especially annoying student: After each class meeting, the student lingers around and asks the instructor to "explain the lecture" that just concluded. You can well imagine that a student who does this once is asking for a lot. The student who does this, repeatedly, is, well, just plain annoying.

I've never had a student display this behavior so persistently, but I have taught students who've shown up during my office hours and expected me to convey the main points of a class meeting all over again. That's at least more comfortable, since I don't have three minutes and a crowd of students there.

But still, there's a problem here. What to do? Here are my ideas, but I'd be interested to hear further suggestions in the comments.

Cultural mismatch and the norms of academic philosophy

There's no point in reciting the distressing statistics about the comparatively low numbers of women and minorities who pursue academic study in philosophy. Even though nearly everyone in the field recognizes that this is a problem, there still seems to be plenty of disagreement about its causes and potential solutions.

But one idea often floated in that discussion is that there's something about the culture of academic philosophy that women (and perhaps minorities) find off putting. That this 'cultural mismatch' might play a large role in explaining the small numbers from these groups was rolling around my head as I read Stevens et al's article on first-generation students and the culture of higher education.

Sure you care about teaching. Or do you?

The past decade has seen a lot of bagging on the professoriate. We are (the baggers allege) lazy, overpaid, dilletante-ish, focused on research rather than teaching, obstacles to long overdue higher education reform. 

My response to such bagging is fourfold: