Friends Association
for Higher Education
2007 Conference
Scholars for Peace,
Justice, and Sustainability
Schedule of Workshops
(Please note that this schedule is subject to change.)
A. Friday, June 15: 1:15-2:30 pm (details)
Presidents' Panel - Doug Bennett (Earlham), Dan DiBiasio (Wilmington), Lauri Perman (Pendle Hill), Steve Emerson (Haverford)
Searching for Water and Wisdom in the Indo-Islamic Garden - Jim Wescoat
Leadership for Social Change at Guilford College - Blaine M. Lukkar
Listening as Peacemaking: Aspects of Compassionate Listening in the Oregon Death Penalty Machine - Rachel Hardesty
When Numbers Matter - Gary Farlow
Process (Quaker) Theology on Peace, Justice, and Sustainability - Lonnie Valentine
Empowerment: Re-visioning God - Paul Eckert
Jesus and Justice - Patricia Williams
Modeling Sustainability in Faith Communities - Michele Graham
Slaves Among Friends: Reframing the Narrative - Betsy Cazden
What is the 8th Principle for Improving Undergraduate Education? Authenticity, Caring, Loving to Learn, Reflection - Steve Gilbert
B. Friday, June 15: 3:00-4:15 pm (details)
Educating Peer Advocates for Sexual Violence Survivors on Campuses - Marya Bower, Brian Massey
Spirit and Intellect - Helene Pollock
Distance Education: Promise and Problems - Rachel Hardesty and Lonnie Valentine
Landrum Bolliing's DVD "Searching for Peace in the Middle East" - Jane Stowe
Peace and Justice; For the Other/s: Quakers Encountering Levinas - Jeff Dudiak and Corey Beals
Quaker Ethics: Purity and Persuasion - Hugh Barbour
Beyond Prisons: A History of Prisons and Where We Go From Here - Laura Magnani and Tonya McClary
C. Friday, June 15: 7:00-8:30 pm (details)
Online Literature Circles: Reflections on Trying a New Approach to Research - Barbara Dixson
The Current Crisis in Analytic Philosophy and a Pragmatic Way Forward - Richard Miller
Friends Scholarship When Friends Research and Produce Scholarly Work on Other Friends - Abigail Adams
Lessons on Trauma from the Psychology Delegation to Vietnam and Cambodia - Rachel M. MacNair
Social Awareness and Peace Activism on College Campuses - Kurt Petrich, Christina Vollbrecht, Elaine Lydick, Erin Murphy, Lindsey Hentz, Paul Millard, and Dayton Gordley
Situations from Life for Learning: The Use of Cases in Teaching - Stephanie Crumley-Effinger
What Do I Bring To The Table? - Deborah Shaw and Frank Massey
Wild Landscapes: Exploring Nature and Vocation through Reading, Photography, and Experiential Learning - Jim Hood and Maia Dery
D.
Saturday,
June 16:
Quakers, the Golden Rule, the Golden Mean, and Nomocracy - Welling Hall
Supporting the Vision of Social Justice in Maine - Diana White
Introducing Quaker Higher Education: What is this New On-line Publication? What Directions Should It Take? - Donn Weinholtz
Links for Success - Susan McNaught
Restorative Teaching: Building Caring Contexts for Learning - Rachel Hardesty
Academic Research and Social Change - Stanford Searl
Beginning Where We Are: How Do We Involve Students in the Study of Nonviolent Social Activism? Rebecca Heller, Michael Heller, and Paul Millard
Chris Hedges' War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning as a Text to Teach about Truth and Trust and Critical Thinking Skills - Caroline Whitbeck
E.
Saturday,
June 16:
Cultivating Peace through Compassionate Pedagogy - Richard Brown
Quaker Philosophy Roundtable - Laura Rediehs, Corey Beals, Marya Bower, Jeff Dudiak, Newton Garver, Richard Miller, Stephen Potthoff, Earl Redding, and Caroline Whitbeck
Music and Justice - Julie M. Meadows
I Never Dreamed There Were Homeless People in This Town: Teaching About Homelessness Through Active Learning - Cathy Pitzer
Are Rubrics Useful in Clarifying Learning? - David Ross
"Educating Toward Peace, Justice, and Sustainability": What Teaching This Course Has Taught Me About Teaching and Being a Teacher - Shane Kirkpatrick
Local Implementation of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development - William B.Upholt, Donn Weinholtz, and Mary Lee Morrison
A Fair and Just Economy - Tom Head and Steve Szeghi
Schedule of Workshops with Descriptions
A. Friday, June 15: 1:15-2:30 pm (back to overview)
Presidents' Panel - Doug Bennett (Earlham), Dan DiBiasio (Wilmington), Lauri Perman (Pendle Hill), Steve Emerson (Haverford)
This year, the FAHE Presidents' Panel will focus on what the Religious Society of Friends ought to do for Quaker Colleges and what Quaker Colleges should do for the Religious Society of Friends. The panelists will include: Earlham President Doug Bennett, Wilmington President Dan DiBiasio, Pendle Hill Executive Director, Lauri Perman, and Haverford President Steve Emerson.
Searching for Water and Wisdom in the Indo-Islamic Garden - Jim Wescoat (University of Illinois)
This talk will briefly introduce issues associated with environmental and cultural heritage conservation in South Asia at sites that include the Taj Mahal, a World Heritage Site in Gujarat, Mughal gardens in Lahore, and a palace-garden complex in Rajasthan. Each place has extraordinary significance including fascinating water systems, along with serious problems that range from severe resource scarcity to violent culltural conflict. Conservation proposals that strive for sustainability and peace-building at these sites may benefit from an increasingly explicit "search for wisdom," which will be the focus for wider Quakerly discussion in this session.
Leadership for Social Change at Guilford College - Blaine M. Lukkar (Guilford College)
Interdisciplinary Leadership for Social Change (ILSC) mentors students in discerning personal gifts for making a difference in the world and naming those skills they acquire during college. ILSC reflects with students on those courses, internships, service experiences and hobbies that lead to discovery of their life’s work. The coordinator of ILSC and a student participant will speak of the program now in its second year. A conversation will follow focusing on issues that come up for any who are passionate about creating venues within educational institutions that assist students in mapping out their academic and co-curricular experiences in the best interest of their calling.
Listening as Peacemaking: Aspects of Compassionate Listening in the Oregon Death Penalty Machine - Rachel Hardesty (Portland State University)
Rachel Hardesty will talk about her learning over the last 8 years listening to people intimately involved in the imposition of capital punishment. Starting out with the principal of the execution team, she was enabled by him to meet many others in the prison system. Her interactions have encompassed families of murder victims, defense attorneys, judges, police detectives and now prosecutors. Beginning her project from a position of foreign-ness and curiosity (she is English) she quickly found herself amidst a group of very wounded people. Her project has radiated outwards as she has followed the wounding. In some ways an ethnographic study in the tradition of social anthropology the process has become a peacemaking activist outreach. In addition, the interactions between Rachel and her informants appear to have brought some healing and have yielded unforeseen insights into the collateral consequences of this very controversial yet popular policy.
When Numbers Matter - Gary Farlow (Wright State University)
We are all aware of the old saw that "figures don't lie, but liars figure." There are however other circumstances when ethical or values-driven judgments have different outcomes that are not based simply on selective or creative presentation of data. Many of these do not require mathematical skill beyond sound logic and arithmetic. Several of these are simply surprising. Examples will be discussed including: balancing device lifetime against availability; the effect of the cost of living adjustment on the evolution of income distribution; the impossibility of an earthquake in Illinois; the evolution of an eyeball; and condensation of the air in a room corner. Others do require some mathematical skill. Examples will be discussed including a simple tax code algorithm. Participants will be invited to contribute examples or topics of their own to explore in seminar fashion.
Process (Quaker) Theology on Peace, Justice, and Sustainability - Lonnie Valentine (Earlham School of Religion)
Process theology developed from the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead which stressed the processional and relational quality of reality rather than the "substance" metaphysics of both ancient and modern thought. Process theologians developed Whitehead's brief remarks on what a process perspective meant about God into an overhaul of many theological issues. Much of recent developments explore what this process view of reality means for issues of social justice, peacemaking and ecological concerns. Further, much of the process view can be of help for Friends' theological explorations as well as Friends' concern for peace.
Empowerment: Re-visioning God - Paul Eckert (Earlham School of Religion)
Jesus and Justice - Patricia Williams
Scholars researching the historical Jesus do not think Jesus said everything reported of him in the Gospels. For example, consensus is that he said little or nothing reported of him in the Gospel of John. However, consensus says that the parables do go back to Jesus—in some form. Several of the parables show Jesus speaking against justice, for he finds pursuit of justice interferes with mercy that God wishes to flow through the domain of God, here on Earth. Human pursuit of justice can thwart God’s will for our lives and relationships.
Modeling Sustainability in Faith Communities - Michele Graham (California Junior and State Colleges; Earlham School of Religion)
My interest is in presenting a paper or workshop using biblical interpretation and early Quaker prophetic insights that naturally lead to a program of community action that will model sustainability. We talk about the desperate need for sustainability, but we haven’t found a method for engaging people to make the necessary changes. I believe this approach has significant merit and would like the opportunity to share it among others with the same agenda. It is not true research of course. Rather, it is a proposal for action that in and of itself will be revealing in the same manner. One advantage of a workshop setting would be the opportunity to critique my action program and to brainstorm with others of like mind, possibilities that I have missed. Fundamentally sustainability is a form of peace, justice, and equality. By acting locally, we are thinking globally, and creating opportunity for true peace.
The standard narrative about Quakers and slavery stresses Friends’ early anti-slavery statements, implying that only a few owned slaves and that by 1775 Friends were entirely clear of slavery. Recent research, including my own on Friends in colonial Rhode Island, presents quite a different story, in which slavery was as fundamental to the colonial economy as oil is to ours, and Quaker choices were less clear-cut. Using Quaker and non-Quaker sources and scholarship, we can reach toward a new narrative of Quaker history and identity that also equips students and Friends to engage more vividly with current ethical dilemmas. (This session will be followed in the same room by another session related to Quakers and slavery, to be led by Hugh Barbour.)
What is the 8th Principle for Improving Undergraduate Education? Authenticity, Caring, Loving to Learn, Reflection - Steve Gilbert (Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group)
This session will be a special "live" broadcast from FAHE at Earlham of Steve Gilbert's regular online "FridayLive" event offered by the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group. This session will extend to 3:30 pm because of the way that the TLT's FridayLive sessions are regularly scheduled, but FAHE participants will have the option to leave early if they wish in order to be able to attend another workshop in timeslot B.
B. Friday, June 15: 3:00-4:15 pm (back to overview)
Educating Peer Advocates for Sexual Violence Survivors on Campuses - Marya Bower and Brian Massey (Earlham College)
This workshop will introduce the program developed at Earlham College for educating peer advocates for survivors of sexual violence. Earlham's program combines a rigorous theoretical and interdisciplinary examination of the causes, expressions, and effects of sexual violence in the U.S. with a thorough experiential component that prepares students to function as peer Advocates for survivors. After learning about the program, participants will discuss how their campuses respond to sexual violence and will consider the resources that would be needed to modify and enhance the programs at their home institutions.
Spirit and Intellect - Helene Pollock (Haverford College)
While some aspects of spirituality are essentially private, our faith impinges on the way we do scholarship, teaching and service in the institution. How free are we to fully integrate our spirituality into our intellectual life? Is the climate open, or do we encounter skepticism, resistance, disagreement or denial (in other people, in the institution, and in ourselves)? How do students include spiritual and religious questions in their educational experience? What norms (formal or informal) would be a sign of the institution “getting it right”? What stands in the way?
Distance Education: Promise and Problems - Rachel Hardesty (Portland State University) and Lonnie Valentine (Earlham School of Religion)
This panel, composed of several faculty who have taught in on-line formats, will present issues they have experienced in such forms of education. What are pedagogical concerns that arise in on-line formats and how do we address them? What are the benefits? What have we experienced as the strengths and weaknesses of such formats more generally, in impact on our own teaching, our institutions, relations with students? What do we see as future issues for us in the expansion of such education, as teachers and Quakers?
Landrum Bolling's DVD "Searching for Peace in the Middle East" - Jane Stowe
Landrum Bolling was a former president of Earlham who is a Middle East expert; he has traveled there numerous times and the DVD is of his interviews with people on all sides in Israel and Palestine. Jane Stowe, Quaker, retired elementary and early childhood teacher, and a peace and justice activist, traveled to Israel and Palestine last summer for two weeks in an Earlham alumni group led by Tony Bing, former Peace and Global Studies director at Earlham. Jane plans to introduce and show this video and lead a discussion about it afterwards.
Peace and Justice; For the Other/s: Quakers Encountering Levinas - Jeff Dudiak (The King’s University College) and Corey Beals (George Fox University)
Although the Quaker academic community is very small, a remarkable three dissertations on Emmanuel Levinas by young Quaker scholars have appeared within the past decade. What is it about this French, Jewish, postmodern, phenomenologist of absolute responsibility to the “other” that attracts, and so captures, the attention of members of the Society of Friends? In this panel, two of the above mentioned scholars begin to probe this question (the third, Rachel Muers of Exeter University, U.K., regrets being unable to participate this time around), attempting to open up an explicit conversation between Quakerism and Levinas, as a way of deepening our understanding of themes in each.
Quaker Ethics: Purity and Persuasion - Hugh Barbour (Earlham College)
Hicks, Gurney and World War cases when Friends working to end slavery and violence differed in their perspectives, and challenge us to understand our "Leadings," motives, and responsibilities as we are called to work for social reforms and world changes. (This session will follow Betsy Cazden's workshop on Slaves Among Friends, and so discussion from that session may continue into this one.)
Beyond Prisons: A History of Prisons and Where We Go From Here - Laura Magnani and Tonya McClary (American Friends Service Committee)
Based on the AFSC’s recent publication, Beyond Prisons: A New Interfaith Paradigm for Our Failed Prison System, co-author Laura Magnani, and national office criminal justice director, Tonya McClary, will discuss the Quaker involvement in the history of prisons and prison work, AFSC’s experience of the system over decades, and a range of ideas based on transformative and healing justice concepts. How can we bridge the gap between the academy and the activists in order to transform violent and oppressive systems on the road to true safety and security?
C. Friday, June 15: 7:00-8:30 pm (back to overview)
Online Literature Circles: Reflections on Trying a New Approach to Research - Barbara Dixson (University of Wisconsin Stevens Point)
Over the 2006-07 academic year, I have been working on a grant-funded project to do online literature circles with my pre-service English teachers and with students from two high schools. The project gives students at an inner city, urban school a chance to talk online with students from a small rural high school, with support and response from university students who plan to become English teachers. Because the study involves grants, human subjects, and at least three bureaucracies, it has really stretched an English Ph.D. whose typical subjects—books—don’t express opinions or require consent forms. I will reflect on this process and ask those present to reflect on the projects which have similarly stretched them.
The Current Crisis in Analytic Philosophy and a Pragmatic Way Forward - Richard Miller (East Carolina University)
As someone who has worked within the Analytic tradition for almost thirty years I’ve become very interested in “Postananalytic Philosophy,” a general name for a very widespread feeling that the Analytic tradition has reached a dead end and that some kind of new way forward is needed. Unlike most of the Postanalytic critics of the field I don’t think that naturalism is the correct path. Instead I argue for a return to the late pragmatism of C.I. Lewis whose “conceptualistic pragmatism” seems to me to have been a promising idea that just got swept away by the enthusiasm for analysis which hit the field very hard at about the same time.
Friends Scholarship When Friends Research and Produce Scholarly Work on Other Friends - Abigail Adams (Central Connecticut State University), Mary Lee Morrison (Pax Educare), Michael Heller (Roanoke College), Michael Birkel (Earlham College), and Thomas Hamm (Earlham College).
What happens to Friends and scholarship when Friends research and produce scholarly work on other Friends? What happens to the researcher’s faith? What happens in their relationship with their faith community? What happens with the scholarship itself, in terms of the quality of our research and writing? How do we handle potential conflicts between our loyalties to our Quaker practice and the material presented in our research? How do handle publishing or pursuing uncomfortable, unpleasant material? How do our disciplines, our audience and we benefit from our potential insider’s insight? As readers of Quakers scholarship on Quakers, how do we identify and benefit from successful contributions?
Lessons on Trauma from the Psychology Delegation to Vietnam and Cambodia - Rachel M. MacNair (Institute for Integrated Social Analysis)
I traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia with the November, 2006 People-to-People delegation of psychology scholars. We visited universities and mental hospitals, along with a women's crisis center and views of people in the cities and countryside. I had discussions with other scholars and students on post-war trauma in general, and specifically the idea that engaging in the act of killing is traumatic. Having studied this in American combat veterans of that war, I was eager to see what the view would be from the other side of the war.
Social Awareness and Peace Activism on College Campuses - Kurt Petrich, Christina Vollbrecht, Elaine Lydick, Erin Murphy, Lindsey Hentz, Paul Millard, and Dayton Gordley (Roanoke College)
Students from Roanoke College will share initiatives by their group, SAGE (Social Awareness Group for Everyone). Activities by SAGE have been aimed at informing the public about social disorders and injustice throughout the world and encouraging discussion in Roanoke College and neighboring communities. This past year they have sponsored various activities such as weekly film screenings and events such as Run for Africa which have been well attended and received on campus. Clips from several of the films along with photos will be shown. Participants will be invited to share their experiences and ideas.
Situations from Life for Learning: The Use of Cases in Teaching - Stephanie Crumley-Effinger (Earlham School of Religion)
This workshop will be an opportunity to have a discussion about using case studies in teaching.
What Do I Bring To The Table? - Deborah Shaw and Frank Massey (Guilford College)
Discernment of gifts is an important step in understanding who we are, what we have to contribute to any given community in which we find ourselves and what our life’s work may be. A brief presentation will share how Guilford’s Initiative on Faith and Practice attempts to help students reflect and discern on these things amidst the often chaotic and overwhelming demands of their college life. Interactive exercises and conversation will follow to open the space for sharing of what other institutions are doing to help students discern their calling or vocation.
Wild Landscapes: Exploring Nature and Vocation through Reading, Photography, and Experiential Learning - Jim Hood and Maia Dery (Guilford College)
This presentation will describe two courses, one entitled “Reading Wilderness” taught during the summer of 2006 and the other, “The American Landscape,” to be taught in the summer of 2007. Both courses combine classroom and experiential learning techniques to deepen students’ understandings of the concept of wilderness, ideas about the American landscape, and the human relationship with the natural world. In addition to a week-long wilderness canoe trip in Canada for one course and hiking in the California mountains for the other, the experiential learning component of each course also includes sustained reflection on individual gifts as a prelude to understanding vocation. The presentation will highlight how courses stressing attentiveness both to self, to others, and to the natural world can assist in developing students’ ecological awareness and vocational insight in an academic context.
D.
Saturday,
June 16:
Quakers, the Golden Rule, the Golden Mean, and Nomocracy - Welling Hall (Earlham College)
The current rejection of the rule of law provides the moral justification and political traction for a radical, anti-realist, anti-idealist, imperial foreign policy in the face of growing popular resentment. Since democracy in the absence of the rule of law could only be a bread and circuses brand of populism, I take the work of advocating nomocracy (the rule of law) to be a prerequisite to teaching students to think about their work as global citizens. Earlham's mission statement indicates that my job is to provide education in the liberal arts with: a concern for the world in which we live and for improving human society. The College strives to educate morally sensitive leaders for future generations. Therefore Earlham stresses global education, peaceful resolution of conflict, equality of persons, and high moral standards of personal conduct. At the same time, my classical positivist training as a political scientist taught me, with catechism according to Morgenthau, that we need to distinguish “between what is true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illuminated by reason, and what is only a subjective judgment, divorced from the facts as they are and informed by prejudice and wishful thinking.” Given the world we live in, how could training students to be morally sensitive leaders committed to peaceful resolution of conflict be anything other than unrealistic wishful thinking? How could promoting nomocracy not be advocacy of the worst sort, not only polemical – deliberately disputing political matters, but also deliberately misleading? How might Friends respond?
Supporting the Vision of Social Justice in Maine - Diana White
(
As a nurse, Quaker, and community activist, I support the work of a foundation which assists grassroots organizations working for fairness, justice, and equity. In the introduction to Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of Freedom, Donaldo Macedo writes, “The real issue is to understand one’s privileged position in the process of helping so as not to...limit the possibilities for the creation of structures that lead to real empowerment.” After a brief introduction, this workshop is envisioned as worship sharing, prayerfully considering what it means as persons with academic and social privilege to work with grassroots organizations.
Introducing Quaker Higher Education: What is this New On-line Publication? What Directions Should It Take? - Donn Weinholtz (University of Hartford)
Quaker Higher Education (QHE) is a new on-line, non-refereed, scholarly journal sponsored by FAHE. The first issue was published in April 2007. QHE will serve FAHE members by offering a new medium for exchanging ideas, while providing a scholarly outlet potentially beneficial to their careers. It will also benefit the wider academic community by providing a focused publication addressing Quaker higher education issues. This workshop is designed to alert people to QHE's existence and purpose, as well as to foster discussion about its future directions. (e.g. How should articles be selected? Should QHE become a refereed journal?)
Links for Success - Susan McNaught (Chesapeake College)
Focus is on linking content courses such as American History, Biology, or Communication with English courses for students who are under-prepared for college work. Students could be developmental studies learners or second language learners. By linking courses, several things occur. First, the courses, rather than the students, are labeled “at risk”. This lessens potential for students to think they are incapable. Second, the specific reading and writing demands of the courses are addressed in the English course—students have a focused, practical framework. Third, the cohort fosters support and community. Fourth, teachers in the two courses learn from each other.
Restorative Teaching: Building Caring Contexts for Learning - Rachel Hardesty (Portland State University)
Following her reading of Nel Noddings, Paulo Freire, Lev Vygotsky, and Donald Schon Rachel Hardesty has been experimenting with various strategies in her university classroom to build a caring context for learning without becoming overwhelmed or distracted from academic standards by the private lives of her students. Research shows that a caring ethic enhances not only student evaluations of university learning experiences and faculty, but also learning itself (Levine, 2003, Smith, 1999, Renard and Rogers, 1999). Her learning took an exponential leap two years ago when she immersed on online teaching. Her presentation will include suggestions and instructions for setting up caring and connected cyberclassrooms including ideas about materials, orientation, prompting discussion, grading and assessment, and time-management. In addition, she will discuss applications of these cyberstrategies to the enhancement of the caring ethic in face to face teaching.
Academic Research and Social Change - Stanford Searl (Union Institute and University)
My paper originates from work with the Quaker Institute for the Future and my new book about Quaker research methodology and social change. This presentation will investigate how spiritually informed research can be understood as a way to understand social change. This paper will focus on how Quaker practices such as clearness committees can be adapted to scholarly research methods.
Beginning Where We Are: How Do We Involve Students in the Study of Nonviolent Social Activism? Rebecca Heller, Michael Heller, and Paul Millard (Roanoke College)
We will share ideas from our own librarian/faculty collaboration for student research on Nobel Peace Prize recipients. Participants are invited to share their best practices, so that we can benefit from each other's useful ideas. How can we combine traditional library research with non-traditional projects? Are our goals for studying nonviolence larger or different than other kinds of academic research? What resources can we draw upon?
Chris Hedges' War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning as a Text to Teach about Truth and Trust and Critical Thinking Skills - Caroline Whitbeck (Case Western Reserve University)
For two years now, teaching a diverse student body at a private university without any religious affiliation, I have, in the middle part of my ethics seminar for freshmen and sophomores on Truth and Trust, given them the choice of whether to read Chris Hedges' book, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, or to consider topics in professional ethics. Each year some students chose each topic. In this session I will present some of the methods I used and the challenges I encountered in seeking to foster critical thinking in the subgroup that each year chose to take on Hedges' disturbing account of the fascination or war and its perversion of truth and reasoning ability.
E.
Saturday,
June 16:
Cultivating Peace through Compassionate Pedagogy - Richard Brown (Naropa University)
The principle of interdependence suggests that the suffering and conflict in the world are mirrored within everyone. Thich Nhat Hahn and others advocate cultivating peace within ourselves and in our immediate environments before facing more challenging situations in the larger world. This interactive workshop will explore non-sectarian Buddhist-inspired pedagogies for higher education classrooms developed over the last sixteen years in the Contemplative Education department at Naropa University. These methods work with the inner roots of conflict, facilitate peace, and transform the seeds of harmful emotions within teachers and students.
Quaker Philosophy Roundtable - Laura Rediehs (St. Lawrence University), Corey Beals (George Fox University), Marya Bower (Earlham College), Jeff Dudiak (The King’s University College), Newton Garver (SUNY Buffalo), Richard Miller (East Carolina University), Stephen Potthoff (Wilmington College), Earl Redding (American University), and Caroline Whitbeck (Case Western Reserve University)
Quaker philosophers gather to discuss how (if at all) we each see ourselves as scholars for peace, justice, or sustainability. Some other queries we may consider include: What are we trying to accomplish in our teaching, our research, and our service? What is philosophy? Is it the task of philosophy to connect with real world problems? Do we ever find our Quaker identity in conflict with our academic-philosophy identity, and if so, how do we respond to such conflicts? Is there something that could be called "Quaker Philosophy"? Do Quakers have anything distinctive to offer to academic philosophy? This session is open to anyone who may find it interesting, regardless of whether or not you consider yourself a philosopher!
Music and Justice - Julie M. Meadows (Presbyterian College)
This presentation is a lecture with musical illustrations. It briefly explains the role of music in classical theories of justice, notes music's absence from contemporary social ethics, and explores the difference that remembering the importance of music might make to contemporary theorizing about justice. I claim that justice is like music: it is an activity that requires practice, and depends as much upon small daily habits as upon large theoretical constructions.
I Never Dreamed There Were Homeless People in This Town: Teaching About Homelessness Through Active Learning - Cathy Pitzer (Wilmington College)
Teaching about homelessness in my Introduction to Sociology course at Wilmington College involves a variety of interactive learning experiences. These include "Cardboard Village," an overnight stay in a cardboard box; service learning projects such as cooking at the Clinton County Homeless Shelter or serving at Sugartree Ministries; the "hunger banquet"; and the "anyone can be homeless" exercise. These activities are designed to make students more empathetic toward the homeless, to break stereotypes of the type of person who becomes homeless, and to get students to realize that there are more homeless people - even in this rural area - than they ever imagined.
Are Rubrics Useful in Clarifying Learning? - David Ross (Bryn Mawr College)
How do we (and our students) know when learning has occurred? How do we share our learning goals with students? How do they and we determine whether those goals have been met? Grading rubrics are used extensively by our k-12 colleagues. I've been experimenting with them in my teaching in economics and quantitative methods courses. In our time together, I plan to describe what I have been doing and why; ask participants to discuss the ways they have been clarifying learning goals for themselves and their students; and seek collectively to improve the ways we identify, achieve and assess our objectives.
"Educating Toward Peace, Justice, and Sustainability": What Teaching This Course Has Taught Me About Teaching and Being a Teacher - Shane Kirkpatrick (Anderson University)
Teaching a course entitled “Educating Toward Peace, Justice, and Sustainability” has helped me reflect on my identity as a teacher. Much of my experience with students in the course has been shaped by, and corroborates, the contention of Larry J. Fisk that peace education is perhaps best pursued not through a limited focus on peace as the subject matter but through a focus on a particular form of education that can be practiced in any and all subject areas and disciplines; Fisk calls this "peace through education" (“Shaping Visionaries: Nurturing Peace Through Education,” pp 159-93 in Patterns of Conflict, Paths to Peace, ed. Fisk and Schellenberg [Broadview, 2000]).
Local Implementation of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development - William B.Upholt (University of Connecticut Health Center), Donn Weinholtz (University of Hartford), and Mary Lee Morrison (Pax Educare)
Out of concern about our society’s incomplete understanding of the concept of sustainable development, a group of educators decided to organize on a “community conversation” for 100 diverse individuals from the greater Hartford area on the topic “Education for Global Sustainability: How do we prepare our children for their roles in creating a future with a healthy environment, a strong economy, and a just society?” The conversation is not to “educate” the participants or be a meeting of experts but to involve members of the community in discussing issues and taking ownership of “action plans” arising from the discussions.
A Fair and Just Economy - Tom Head (George Fox University) and Steve Szeghi (Wilmington College)
We explore what it means for there to be a fair and just distribution in terms of income, wealth, social belonging or anything that has value. We examine the inefficiency and injustice of income and wealth disparity. We explore the meaning of economic justice within humanity as it currently exists, between present and future generations, and between humanity and the rest of creation. This exploration is conducted within the context of The Quaker Institute for the Future’s “Moral Economy Project,” and we will report on the progress of that larger undertaking.
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