Instructional Quality: The Most Important and Most Neglected Issue on Campus

Harry Brighouse is the Mildred Fish Harnack Professor of Philosophy and Carol Dickson Bascom Professor of the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is one of the most well-known contemporary philosophers of education and also directs the Center for Ethics and Education. His books include On Education (Routledge) and School Choice and Social Justice (Oxford University Press). In his FC Talk, Professor Brighouse will examine instructional quality as an equity issue on college campuses. Arguably, high quality instruction and mentoring is particularly important for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Abstract: How good is our undergraduate teaching? And how equally are its benefits spread? I argue that our undergraduate teaching (including mine, and, probably, yours) is suboptimal. And I argue that, whereas everyone (including people who never even attend college) is made worse off by its suboptimality, it is particularly bad for students who are already disadvantaged. This makes undergraduate instruction a serious equity issue. Fortunately, it can be addressed by administrators, departments, and individual instructors, and I will make some useful suggestions.

This talk will be hosted on Zoom. For more information, please email Lucy Schwarz.

Event Contacts
Lucy Schwarz
luciaschwarz@email.arizona.edu