PEA Soup

Recruiting Philosophy Majors

At the "start of the year" college meeting last week our dean showed some Powerpoint slides listing the number of majors in each department over the last few years.  The point was to illustrate how the college is growing across the board.  Philosophy wasn't exactly a good illustration of his point, however.  In F08, the latest year for which he had data, we had only 39 majors.  That was more than in F03, but not only is it a small number in absolute terms, it is less than in the prior two years.  Next year's number should be slightly higher, and I think that we may not be getting credit for a few double majors.  Still, we don't have the number of majors that we should have, and among other problems this means that important and worthwhile courses are being canceled for lack of enrollment---theory of knowledge and philosophy of natural science being two recent examples.  As department chair, I need to do something to help the department recruit more majors.  But what?

Performance Evaluations in an Entrepreneurial Work Culture

As summer comes to a close and we get ready to return to the classroom, I've been thinking more about the different shapes my colleagues' summers have taken, about how much we've written and how much real holiday we've taken.  As a philosophy department chair, one of my responsibilities is chairing the department's annual performance evaluation committee and each year I'm struck anew by how hard some of my colleagues work. I feel humbled by how much very high quality work some colleagues publish.

The Ethics of Naming and Shaming

We've all had our own horrible experiences with journals -- long delays, sloppy or uncharitable referee reports, apparently hasty or otherwise defective decisions, etc. You can share yours here and achieve catharsis! Or if you're well adjusted, you could just share for sharing's sake.

Anyway, I'm wondering what people think are some necessary/sufficient/relevant conditions for each of the following:

1. It is morally wrong to publicly disclose your negative experience with the journal.
2. It is morally permissible to publicly disclose your negative experience with the journal.
3. It is morally obligatory to publicly disclose your negative experience with the journal.

Different conditions will presumably apply for positive experiences, but set those aside for now (or don't, if you really don't want to).

And how does the journal wiki's existence (v1.0 and perhaps one day v2.0) affect any of this? All the information shared there is/would be anonymous and averaged, which is presumably much more reliable than anecdotes.

More NEH

The following comment, from an anonymous NEH reviewer, was posted over at IHE due to some (length-related?) problem with posting it here.  It is worth reading. 

What does the NEH have against us? (Updated and edited)

Once again the NEH has announced the “Enduring Questions” grant competition:

http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/EnduringQuestions.html

The announcement raises many troubling questions.

A New Era Begins: Multiple Submissions

Thom Brooks alerts us to a new moral and political philosophy journal, Public Reason.  The journal looks to be noteworthy for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it is an open-access e-journal, following the recent (and I think wholly positive) trend set by journals like Philosophers' Imprint and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy.  Moreover, back when JESP debuted, there was some excitement over the idea that philosophy had its first journal (or one of its first journals?) that was willing to consider papers that are simultaneously under submission elsewhere.  As was noted at the time, this policy loses some sizzle if it is the only journal willing to do this.  Apparently now that is no longer the case, though: Public Reason will also consider simultaneous submissions, so there are at least two journals to which those working in moral/political/social philosophy can simultaneously submit.

For philosophers concerned with various timetables that increase pressure to publish, this will no doubt be welcome news.  It will be interesting to see how interested parties, particularly referees, respond to this development.  (Some have been bothered by the idea of simultaneous submissions of book proposals.)  As a referee, I don't think I'd be too bothered to learn that I had been working up a report for a paper that was withdrawn from the journal I was working for because it had been accepted elsewhere.  But I also think it would be nice if authors took advantage of this opportunity--and thus of referees--only when they are under some sort of career deadline or other unique pressure to publish.

In related news, and again like JESP, Public Reason will be publishing discussion notes, in addition to regular articles and book reviews.

Puzzling Hiring Practices

Last year about this time, Kris McDaniel posted some important questions about the nature of the hiring process in philosophy, particular with respect to APA interviews.  I’d like to resurrect one of Kris’s questions for a new round of discussion as well as add another.

Online Journals

I may be rehashing an old discussion--if so, please direct me to it--but I am trying to get a sense of what's going on with the online journals in our field. I am asking with a number of different hats on all at the same time. I've got a crowded head these days! I'm involved in several publishing projects, I'm an academic administrator who gets called on for her views about publishing in my discipline, and I'm also trying to decide where to send my own work.

Sexism and Philosophy

Today's (Sept. 10) Inside Higher Ed has a news story about Sally Haslanger's paper on Sexism in academic Philosophy

Blogging and the future of scholarship

I had a conversation earlier this year with a faculty member who was recently appointed to emeritus status at a research university, a story that says a lot about the research climate in philosophy then and now.