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A Minor Major Adjustment

Christopher Pynes

It’s nice to be invited back, and I want to thank Brian for letting me blog on his site again. For those of you interested in a follow up story to the elimination of the Western Illinois University philosophy major and the closing of the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, let me get you all up to date.

The Philosophy and Religious Studies department has been eliminated along with its two majors. What is left are minors in both philosophy and religious studies and about two dozen philosophy majors that need to be taught out. Over the summer the Provost tasked the faculty in the eliminated departments with finding academic homes. The Religious Studies faculty voted to join the faculty in the eliminated programs and departments of Women’s Studies and African American Studies to become the Department of Liberal Arts and Sciences pending IBHE approval. The four remaining philosophers, not including our dean, were keen to find an academic home where we would fit academically AND retain some identifiable presence on campus. Not an easy task, and other departments in our college weren’t particularly interested in taking on four additional faculty members when layoffs were (and are still) a concern. The chair of Mathematics, however, offered to do just that–provide an academic home and a visible presence on campus.

How? The chair, presumably to signal his support of philosophy and its importance to a university education, submitted a request to the Provost to change the department name to: “Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy.” We are awaiting approval, but if it is approved, philosophy will still have some visibility on campus.

It’s all a bit strange, and being in a new department is like starting a new job. Also I’m no longer recruiting students and discussing the benefits of a major in philosophy, even so, we do realize we need to market our minor. Some readers may remember this. Unfortunately this doesn’t have quite the same ring: “Thinking about a minor, minor in thinking.”

I am opening comments on this thread so that people can share and discuss successful programs and strategies for promoting philosophy minors.

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10 responses to “A Minor Major Adjustment”

  1. Anonymous

    Put information and a link to LSAT scores on an accessible place on your website. Inform students that they can take a general philosophy minor that will help them with law school. Once a semester, take out an ad in the school paper that links to your website. We have had success with this at our school.

    Reply
  2. James C. Klagge

    Thank goodness for a broad-minded math department. Hope that works well.

    Reply
  3. Michel X.

    Being linked to mathematics seems like a real coup with respect to cementing philosophy's importance to the university. I look forward to reading about how it works out, and the lessons the rest of us can draw with respect to marketing ourselves as indispensable.

    Do you have a sense of whether/how the association with mathematics will change course offerings in the minor? Apart from the reduction to a minor itself forcing some changes, I mean.

    Reply
  4. Mohan Matthen

    This is sad and it must be very difficult and identity threatening for you, but I hope that with some creative interdisciplinary thinking you can turn it into a positive. All good wishes going forward.

    Reply
  5. Bryan Hall

    Consistent with Matthen's suggestion, one thought would be to find a way of anchoring components of your minor in other disciplines, especially large ones that may have too many students and not enough faculty to service the major. For example, at my previous institution, we were able to convince Psychology to require Philosophy of Mind for one of its major tracks. This creates a curricular pipeline for your minor which is especially important if your role in general education has been reduced or eliminated.

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  6. newfie931

    Chris, I'm sorry about your department being cut.

    As a math faculty member in a SLAC in Illinois who loves studying philosophy, I'm happy and proud that the math department at WIU has offered to take you and the other philosophy faculty in and change the department name.

    Good luck, and hope it works out well.

    Reply
  7. Christopher Pynes

    Thanks to everyone for the well wishes. The mathematicians have been very welcoming, and the philosophers are excited to be joining them. As for our philosophy classes, for now, during the teach out period, they shouldn’t change much. But we have started discussion on possible curricular collaboration.

    I should say that I like the idea of newspaper spots marketing the minor and LSAT success. How we would pay for that an open question, but a good idea nonetheless.

    The suggestion to try to get other programs on campus to require our classes is really a non-starter for us. Things are to the point where very few, if any, programs are willing to consider using “their” students to help save other program. We had an “ethics minor” in philosophy that was eliminated two years ago because of low enrollment. We were in the process of promoting it to business students, but then the provost decided to cut the ethics minor. Also, our provost just instituted a university wide gen ed review. I doubt there will be much support for a mandatory philosophy class, but if you can get that at your university, I highly recommend it. It can certainly change the fate of a department.

    Having just a minor is clear going to be a challenge, and I would like to hear from people in those situations as well.

    Reply
  8. Unknown Philosopher

    The business school at WIU is accredited by AACSB. You could consider proposing a standalone course in business ethics as a requirement for students who major in specific areas (e.g., Management, Marketing, Finance, Accounting). AACSB accreditation standards emphasize "ethical understanding and reasoning" as a "general skill area" for all students. Many schools of business try to satisfy this standard via "modules" within specific courses (e.g., a brief unit on ethics within a course on auditing), but others will require a full-semester course that is–at least sometimes–taught by someone outside of the business faculty. At my public LAC, the SOB has used the latter model for 20+ years. The PHIL department offers 3 sections of the business ethics course each semester (40 seats per section)–enough to justify one full-time line. The course is targeted to sophomores.

    There are several good things that come out of this, including a number of students each year who get interested in philosophical inquiry/discussion and who decide to pursue a minor in philosophy. There are also good opportunities to collaborate with colleagues in business disciplines, whether on curricular matters or on research.

    Reply
  9. Known philosopher

    Like unknown philosopher, our state school has an accredited Business School that requires all students in one of its programs to take a Business Ethics course. This does aid us in keeping philosophers employed. And, even if they do not declare a minor, it is nice if they just take another philosophy course. It shows that even the students see value in our discipline, and it allows you to run courses that may not be able to run otherwise.

    Reply
  10. Derek Bowman

    "The suggestion to try to get other programs on campus to require our classes is really a non-starter for us."

    This shouldn't be surprising, given the zero-sum approach to the position of philosophy vis-a-vis other departments you described in your earlier discussion of gen-ed requirements:

    http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2015/10/university-structure-and-the-success-and-failure-of-philosophy.html

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