I’ve been thinking about the process I go through when I launch a new course in philosophy. Writing outcomes and an outline for the CAC is just some documentation of a more extensive process of research, literature review, review of faculty qualifications, and curriculum development with the needs and abilities of our students in mind. When I submit a proposal to the CAC, I document some of this activity. So long as the content of the course is squarely in the domain of philosophy, the CAC has good reason to trust the short write up I provide as evidence of robust academic and curricular standards. After all, anyone who teaches in the philosophy program will have extensive demonstrated professional qualifications that will have been vetted through hiring committees, periodic reviews, promotion applications, and routine day to day interdepartmental collaboration. When ethics is taught in the philosophy program, it is taught by ethicists who are teaching curriculum that meets the expectations of the chair of philosophy and other members of the department. None of this institutional infrastructure exists when another program teaches ethics curriculum. In practice, it has fallen entirely to the CAC to provide what it can in the way of quality assurance for that curriculum when it is taught outside the program. There is no vetting of instructor qualifications, curriculum quality or programmatic expertise in this situation. Nor is the CAC well qualified to fill in the gaps.
I find it curious that Philosophy now finds itself struggling with this issue for the second time in just a year. Last year, our two-year nursing program decided on its own to remove the ethicist from its ethics curriculum and replaced a class that had been offered by the philosophy program and co-taught by philosophy and nursing with their own course without consulting or notifying Philosophy. Several years prior, Philosophy had been asked to develop that course in collaboration with the Associate’s in Nursing program to satisfy the expectations of the SBCTC’s Associate in Nursing DTA. The SBCTC intended ethics to be a Gen Ed component of the Associate’s in Nursing and had asked programs around the state to work with philosophy programs on this. I am not aware of any changes in the expectations of the SBCTC on this matter and I’ve heard no news of anyone looking into the matter. So, on this matter, I suspect that BC is now out of alignment with the SBCTC policy. But that’s a policy matter beyond my purview.
I’m more concerned with what we can do to uphold the integrity of curriculum that sometimes legitimately crosses the boundaries of specific disciplines or programs here at BC. This is a matter of serving our students well. What I would propose is that the CAC uphold a firm requirement that when a program A incorporates significant curriculum that falls clearly in the domain of program B, program A collaborates with program B on things like curriculum and faculty development before course proposals are submitted to the CAC.
To cite a successful case, we have long offered a cross listed course in Criminal Justice Ethics. It has always been taught by Charlene Freyberg who is CJ faculty. She and I had several conversations about the ethics component of this course as she was developing it, and we have consulted many times since. I don’t think the CAC expected this to happen at the time, but it was the best practice and I’m recommending that the CAC begin to expect this.
I am a proponent of the idea that people should study the things that they teach. Within programs we have extensive hiring and faculty review processes to assure this. For all I know this may be the case with Gordon Gull’s proposal for an ethics course in Computer Science. I don’t know what his background is in philosophy or ethics. But we currently have no institutional policy or mechanism to assure this aspect of integrity when a significant piece of curriculum is taught outside of its home discipline. I believe it falls to the CAC to remedy this.