Teaching
This past spring (2008), I tought two courses. One was Honors 102, in the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. The course is called "Self and Cosmos." It is essentially an intensive writing course for freshmen in the honors college. We read and talked about a number of texts required for all honors 102 students, as well as a number of texts I chose, following the theme of the course. We used BlackBoard as our online classroom, where students could see the syllabus, their grades, discussions boards, links to internet resources, and more.
I have recently received some exciting news about two of my students from Honors 101 (fall 2007). Meaghan Gandy and Scarlett Andrews have had their final papers from the class accepted for presentation at the Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference. These two exceptional freshmen presented their papers on April 18 and 19, 2008, in Forest Grove, Oregon. It is exciting to have two of my students from a group of 12 receive such an honor. Various funding sources at The University of Mississippi will help cover the students' travel expenses. I am very proud of their success. I have posted some information about these two students and their trip on the highlights page of my department's Web site.
The second course I tought in the spring was PPL 212, "Critical Thinking, Communication, and Public Policy." It is a combination of critical thinking, involving the study of argumentation, fallacies, and logical evaluation, and public speaking. It is a practice-intensive course, in which students are asked to give six in-class presentations. The subject matter of our discussions, when we apply the principles of reason that we study, are focused upon issues of public policy. This course also depends heavily upon BlackBoard. The same resources I mentioned above for BlackBoard in Honors 102 are available for PPL 212. Whereas Honors 101 and 102 are open to students of any major in the College of Liberal Arts, PPL 212 is only for students majoring or minoring in Public Policy Leadership.
In the summer of 2008, I will spend nearly all of my time writing, with the support of a grant from the College of Liberal Arts and another from my department here at Ole Miss. I will be working with one student in the Honors College on his excellent and pertinent thesis on the subject of affordable housing in Oxford, MS. At the end of the summer, I'll meet up with a number of students in Seoul, South Korea, who will be there for an exchange program, while I'm there to present a paper at the World Congress of Philosophy.
In the fall of 2008, I'll be teaching "Ethics and Public Policy," for which I am working on a book this summer. My working title for the book is Ethics in the Making: Morality, Leadership, and Public Policy. In semesters to follow, I'll teach courses in "Philosophy of Leadership: Classics of Ethics and Politics," "Philosophy and Diversity in Public Policy," and the "Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights: Western Justifications and International Challenges." I will also develop courses called "Philanthropy and Ethics," "Distributive Justice," and other special topics courses.
In designing Honors 101 and 102 for the Honors College at Ole Miss, I developed a new way of teaching argumentative writing. I have found the method successful at reducing the time necessary for grading papers, increasing feedback for students, and guiding students' writing organizationally, and critically. I am working on a paper in which I describe the development and implementation of this method. I intend to send it to the journal, Teaching Philosophy, once it is ready.
If you'd like more information about the department of Public Policy Leadership, visit: http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/leadership.
