Like many philosophy instructors throughout the academy, one of my primary services to the university is teaching 100-level logic, a required course for all undergraduate students. In many ways I relish the responsibility and consider teaching the course one of my more valuable roles at the university. Furthermore, that the university requires logic makes me hopeful that higher education still values the cultivation of critical thinking, which should be a primary function of a logic class. However, required courses at the (...) university follow a mandated assessment process that involves the administration of entry and exit exams, and a comparison of the test results to track teaching effectiveness. Passing the exit .. (shrink)

The utilitarian and consumerist model of higher education undervalues the importance and worth of the liberal arts in higher education, both globally and locally. Globally speaking, it does not take long to flip through a national newspaper or to click through the Chronicle of Higher Education to find either some call for the academy to train students for the current set of jobs available, especially for which there is high demand, low supply, and a national need, or critical responses to (...) such a call. Andy Delbanco wrote in The Chronicle Review of the problem, citing our “need to respond to the public demand for some demonstrable utility in what we teach: literature, history, philosophy, the arts.”1 How many... (shrink)