Oct

13, 2018

To: Dr. Paul Allen, Associate Dean
Humanities, Languages and Culture
Salt Lake Community College

From: Dr. Jane Drexler, Associate Professor, Philosophy
Salt Lake Community College

Re: Travel Support Request

Dear Dr. Allen,

Please accept this application and cover letter as you consider funding my travel to:

The 2019 American Philosophical Association Conference – Central Division
Denver, CO
February 20-23, 2019.

Accepted Panel Presentation: “Teaching Plato’s Apology: A Way-of-Life Approach”
(see below for the proposal details)

Attending this conference will help me serve the department, discipline, and college
The APA is the principle professional organization in the U.S. of academic philosophy. It
brings together philosophy faculty and graduate students from all over the globe for the
shared exploration of ideas, discussion of developments and challenges in the field, and
advancement of each generation of philosophy graduate students into the faculty role.

Arguably, then, it is one of the most important places to bring the voice of the community
college: Community college faculty not only offer the foundational experience in general and
higher education for millions of transfer students each year, but we also experience first-
hand some of the largest obstacles to student access and success, and we are on the front
lines of creative pedagogies and engaged learning. Our voices should be heard at these major
conferences.

Moreover, Philosophy faculty from community colleges must – and do – grapple with and
articulate, in our theories and in our pedagogies, the value and meaning of philosophy for
the world today. Ours is not an abstract valuing of philosophy. It is urgent and concrete.
We stay grounded in what is at stake in teaching philosophy and in that way are able to
mitigate the loss of perspective that comes from uber-specialization.

AAPT Mini-Conference on Teaching Philosophy
In a concerted effort to bring a greater presence to the value and meaning of *teaching*
philosophy, The American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) has organized a mini-
conference for the first two days of the APA. Like the larger biennial AAPT conference which
I help organize, this workshop/mini-conference brings together philosophy faculty from
across regions and college-types for an engaged and scholarly exploration of teaching
philosophy at the community college, in general education, and beyond; and particularly
focuses on concrete application in the classroom and in program and curriculum
development.

As one of the only theory-grounded and practically-focused academic organizations in the
world that is centered specifically on the teaching of philosophy, the AAPT actively seeks to
better embed its focus on teaching into that disciplinary overlord, the APA. As you can
imagine, then, attending this conference strengthens networks of pedagogically-minded
colleagues in philosophy, enhances the learning of new techniques and scholarship in the
teaching of philosophy, and puts one front-and-center at one of the major sites for sharing
new ideas.


Attending this conference will help me become a better teacher
The design and purpose of these joint APA/AAPT Mini-conferences is to use collaboration
and scholarship to help develop real guides and practical techniques for teaching philosophy.
Some of my goals in attending this conference are:
• To improve my assignment design and general-education-focused curricula
development to better cultivate effective inclusive practices and engaged learning
• To develop and hone class activities that are grounded in the Way-of-Life approach
• To explore further, and in conversation, the value and role of philosophy for non-majors

Our Accepted Panel Presentation Proposal:
Teaching the Apology: A Way-of-Life Approach
Jane Drexler, Salt Lake Community College, UT (panel organizer)
Caleb Cohoe, Metro State University of Denver, CO
Jacob Stump, University of Toronto, Ontario
Marisa Diaz-Waian, Founder/Director, Merlin CCC, a philosophy nonprofit org, Helena, MT
Ryan Johnson, Elon University, NC
Philip Schoenberg, Western New Mexico University, NM
Alli Thornton, University of South Alabama, AL

This past summer, the National Endowment of Humanities sponsored a summer

institute on Reviving Philosophy as a Way of Life. Inspired by the work of Pierre Hadot,
this Institute was grounded on the conviction that our academic discipline as it’s
practiced today can often feel as though it is losing sight of the fundamental value of
philosophy and its capacity contribute to a life well-lived. The value of philosophy lies
not just in the substance of our theories, nor merely in the critical reasoning skills
beneficial for our students’ other classes, careers and pursuits. The value of philosophy
for our students lies in its capacity to affect, inspire, make meaningful, and make-
real the day-to-day lives we live.

Thus, for us, teaching philosophy to our students is about opening spaces for them
to engage with different philosophical ways of life, in order to see how belief inspires
 action, affect inspires insight, knowledge inspires commitment, metaphysics inspires
ethics.

Teaching The Apology in the Way-of-Life style, then, is focused on having students enact
the examined life: For example, students in one of our introductory classes write their
own “Apology,” framed around the juicy question, “what would you be accused of?,” and
scaffolded through the first 6 weeks of the semester. In another, students create and
explore narratives based on various character types Socrates discusses (e.g. a person
who has wealth, but who does not achieve virtue/excellence). In a philosophy-centered
non-profit organization, community members explore Socrates’s way of life through a
series of “Philosophy Walks.”

In this Teaching Hub session, participants from the Reviving Philosophy as a Way of Life
NEH Institute propose to present on some of the “philosophical exercises,” like those
above, that they use to teach Plato’s Apology. We will begin by offering examples of our
own “Way of Life” curricula, activities or assignments. That will be followed by a 20-30
minute workshop where session attendees will come together in small groups to develop
way-of-life activities – in-class activities, out-of-class philosophical experiments,
academic assessments, and the like – that they can use in their own classes to teach The
Apology.

The session will end with a Q&A/general discussion. Total time proposed: 90
minutes. Session attendees will take away concrete ideas, handouts and instructions for
in-class and out-of-class activities and assignments, and will work together to develop
some of their own approaches to teaching this foundational text.

My contribution to our accepted panel centers on a series of scaffolded assignments I

designed that culminate in “student apologies.” That “juicy question” mentioned in the
proposal is mine, the particular in-class and out-of-class activities to move students from
beginning to end of the larger project have been under development and practice this
summer and fall, and the Signature Assignment – The Student Apology – is based on a specific
structure which students in class learn to discern from several examples of apologies,
including Plato’s of course, but also MLK, Thoreau, Merle Woo, and Tim deChristopher.

While I do not know the particular sessions that will be offered at the 2019 APA Conference
and at its Teaching Hub, some of my goals are:
o To continue ongoing collective efforts begun at the NEH institute to embed and support
way-of-life approaches in the academic discipline of philosophy
o To learn from colleagues designing way of life classroom assignments and curricula
o To explore further, and in conversation, the value and role of philosophy for non-majors,
and within and beyond the higher-ed institution.
o To better utilize the art of “question-formulating” in the learning process, drawing on the
pedagogies using the Socratic Method (and to disrupt the conflation of a Socratic Method
with the competitive, zero-sum style of discussion that often gets that label)
o
(For a general idea of the Conference structure and session-offerings, here is the program
for the 2019 APA/AAPT Teaching Hub in NYC at APA-Eastern)

Attending the conference is professionally appropriate:
I am currently chair of the organizing committee for the American Association of Philosophy
Teachers Biennial conference, and most likely will continue on in that role (those decisions
get formalized in late fall). As we begin planning for our 2020 Conference-Workshop, I will
be working to develop conference themes, special events and keynotes. The Teaching Hubs
are the best place to bring together collective AAPT minds in a face-to-face setting, as so
many key committee members attend these THs. The February of the first off-year is the
right time to start. (if you recall, I started formal organization at the APA-Eastern hub which
I attended in late January 2016 in Baltimore).

Furthermore, the panel I have organized and will participate in is drawn directly from my
ongoing work on the value of philosophy for non-majors, general education and community
college students. It builds directly on the progress made during the NEH institute, and
processes and improves our efforts to progress the larger aims of the Philosophy as a Way
of Life approach, as (is soon to be) stated in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences
newsletter spotlight of my work:

Contrasting the super-silo-ization of philosophy in modern higher education—and its
subsequent isolation from the world and individual lives it is meant to engage--those
who approach Philosophy as a Way of Life are returning to an ancient idea of philosophy
as a guide to a good life. During this Summer Institute, three directors (from Wesleyan,
Notre Dame, and Fordham), six experts within key WOL philosophical schools
(Buddhism, Confucianism, Stoicism, Skepticism, etc.), as well as 25 faculty from around
the nation spent ten days exploring the theories and practices of key philosophical ways
of life, and how they might be brought into our philosophical curricula and might offer
a way of reviving the value, and activity, of the discipline of philosophy. Here’s the
website.

Neither “continental” nor “analytic,” Philosophy as a Way of Life offers a third approach
to the academic field, but one grounded on the refusal to stay merely academic. Part of
the institute, then, was also about how this group can work together—long term—to
further institutionalize and support this growing field within the discipline, and build
upon its presence and scholarly base.

How I will share the information, activities and insights with my department:
In order to share the results and insights of attending and presenting at this conference, I
would compose a report which highlights key findings and pedagogical resources, spotlights
the best sessions, and such. This conference will also inform the five-year review of PHIL
1000, as well as the development of the CBE PHIL 1000 course, as I try to bridge (or at least
not implode between) WOL and CBE goals.

Thank you for your consideration. Attached to this letter, you will find the SLCC Travel
Request Form, a copy of the Conference Announcement, and other requested materials.