by Joe Miller
Most days, I don’t miss academia.
College professors spend a lot of time writing extremely technical papers filled with jargon that the average person can’t follow, then publishing those papers in journals that cost hundreds of dollars. If your paper solves all the world’s problems, but no one can read it, have you really accomplished anything?
Also, I hated grading. It was equal parts tedious and disheartening. I spent hours creating assignments that included detailed lists of things to avoid doing, only to see a third of the assignments doing at least one of those things.
And yet, I still get a little nostalgic every fall. I hated grading, but I loved teaching.
Early in graduate school, I knew that I wanted a teaching-focused job. Professors at elite, research-focused universities teach as few as three courses per academic year, and rarely (if ever!) teach an introductory course.
I applied for a few of those jobs. But I focused most of my efforts on the kinds of places where professors teach eight courses per year, with six of those typically being introductory classes.
All three institutions where I taught (Hampden-Sydney College, West Point, UNC at Pembroke) used the eight-course-per-year model.
As a result, most of the classes I taught were at the introductory level. Introductory philosophy classes fill core general education requirements. Most of the students enrolled in them to check off a box, not because they wanted to be there. Students in my introductory logic course were especially unhappy to be there. Symbolic logic counted as a math credit, and students enrolled thinking logic would be easier than college algebra. (Spoiler: It’s not.)
Still, I loved those introductory classes. It’s incredibly rewarding to see that expression when a student wrestles understanding from a complex text that tackles an abstract concept the student had never before encountered.
Those moments made the slog through student essays and the shockingly low pay worthwhile.
The fall nostalgia hit early and hard this year.
Caroline and I recently visited our son, Matt, in Charlotte, North Carolina. We took a morning to do our usual late summer shopping trip for clothes and school supplies to start the new academic year.
But the contents were much different. We traded jeans and sweatshirts for chinos and polos, and assembled boxes of pencils, erases and folders. There were supplies for a bulletin board.
Somehow Matt has transformed from the middle schooler who had to be cajoled into doing his homework into a magna cum laude graduate of NC State who, as of the publication date of this column, will be just about finishing up his first day as a history teacher at J. Frank Martin High School.
Watching him setting up his classroom, working through lesson plans…I’m just thrilled for him—and for the kids who I know are going to love him.
I’m incredibly proud of him. And just the teensiest bit envious.
Every once in a while, I think about going back into academia. Then I remember that back when I was in graduate school, universities were turning out two philosophy PhDs for every one tenure track job. They’ve continued doing so for the last 25 years.
Competition for academic jobs is fierce.
But then I had a realization. I’ve learned two new careers (journalism and information architecture) without enrolling in any sort of degree program. You don’t have to be affiliated with a university to learn things. You don’t have to be affiliated with one to teach things, either.
So, I’m throwing this out to see if there would be any interest in a (free!) philosophy class.
It wouldn’t be a formal class with assignments (I still don’t like grading!), but it would be a bit more structured than a book club. Think of it more like a guided discussion group. Or a college seminar, minus the papers.
I’m considering two possible topics.
Option 1: Just War Theory. We’ll read Michael Walzer’s Just and Unjust Wars (the principal text in West Point’s required philosophy course). We’ll discuss the conditions under which a nation can justly wage war and the requirements for conducting war in a just manner.
Option 2: Ethics. We’ll explore a set of moral problems (e.g., abortion, animal rights, duties to families) from the perspective of major thinkers in the Western philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Kant and Bentham) and look at views like egoism and relativism that challenge the very possibility of objective moral rules.
The time commitment would be something like a couple of hours twice a month from September through December.
If you’re interested, then email me at (joe.miller@ fountaindigitalconsulting.com). If enough of you are interested in one of the topics, then we’ll start class together this fall.
