PHILOSOPHY of EDUCATION SOCIETY

July 2007 Update

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Call for Dues and Elections - Sasha Sidorkin

This is the time of the year when you share a part of your fat summer paycheck with your favorite Society. Please keep in mind that paying on time is not only an honorable thing to do, but will also give you a discount at the next conference. The Executive Board has approved a differential conference registration fees structure: $120 for members, $150 for non-members; $40 for student members , $60 student non-members. To pay your dues, please login to our secure payment system. It does have the forgotten password feature. Please pay with a credit card - Amex, Visa or Master Card; check payments are also available, but use the on-line system nevertheless. If you have forgotten whether you paid or not, log in and check under the Membership tab. Take this time to update your address.

Please also vote for 7 members of the Elections Committee by September 1. To vote, log in and click on the Elections tab. Thanks to all members who agreed to stand for these election.

Message from the President - Michael Katz

Let me share with the membership what a great honor it is to be the President of PES; I view it as the highlight of my forty-one year teaching career and my thirty-three years as an academic.  In this brief missive, I want to say why our coming convention in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 11-14th at the Hyatt Regency Hotel holds special significance for me and should be a great experience for those of you planning on coming—and I hope that many of you will plan on coming.

I view a small, collegial organization like PES as an extended family of reasonably kindred spirits, folks committed to engaging philosophical issues bearing on education with thoughtfulness, clarity, and perspicacity.  But PES, to me, is not just about sharing our scholarly interests and performances; it is also about fellowship, camaraderie, collegiality, and, yes, friendship.  Many of my PES friendships go back to the very first year I joined the society in 1974, when I graduated from Stanford.  Nel Noddings, who has been a longtime friend and colleague, had graduated in 1973, having finished in two years, while I took four.  The year I left Stanford Denis Phillips came to Stanford to begin his illustrious career there; and this year he retired from Stanford after 33 years.

The Cambridge conference reconnects me in a special way to my PES history and to my own biography and I will indulge myself briefly in those connections.  In the late 1980’s, I had moved my career with my wife’s career from Nebraska to San Jose State University, giving up tenure and an Associate Professorship to begin again—at the bottom of the pecking order; my good friend Betty Sichel had talked me into becoming Secretary-Treasurer of PES, while I had no secretarial support.  Denis Phillips had become President of PES and wanted to have a “big bash” to honor PES’s fiftieth birthday in Washington, D.C.; so I set out to collect as much money from “deadbeat PES” members and ex-members who had not paid their dues for several years.  I sent out numerous reminder letters with return mail envelopes; some paid three years past dues with notes like “this clears my conscience; never contact me again.”  In any case, we collected several thousand dollars in back dues and had a wonderful party with a joyful luncheon honoring Kenneth Benne, who, as some of us feared, talked his way through the candles melting into the 50th birthday party cake.  Arthur Brown, a beloved friend and now deceased, matched Denis and others with humor at the luncheon.  So it is fitting that at this year’s Presidential Luncheon we will honor Denis Phillips with a roast of him—with friends and former students telling their favorite “D.C. Phillips stories.”  Denis has been regaling us with humor as well as inspiring us with scholarly work for many years—so this should be one highlight of the conference.  If you want to participate in this event—contact Susan Verducci, one of Denis’s students at susan.verducci@sjsu.edu. Susan will serve as emcee.  

Returning to Cambridge, Boston and the Hyatt Regency has special significance for me as well.  We had been to Cambridge and the Hyatt Regency twice in our past for wonderful meetings.  In addition, Boston was virtually a second home for me, growing up in Hartford, Connecticut, since my mom grew up in Dorcester, a suburb or Boston—across from the Franklin Zoo.  I always loved visiting Boston and still do.  As a child going to Fenway Park and to the Braves Stadium were memorable and regular events.  I even had the honor as a very young boy to watch Ted Williams hit a home run in his last at bat as a Boston Red Sox player —a three run home run in the eighth inning. I was told later that he did not come out of the dugout for 15 minutes to the cheering fans because of a running feud with them and the writers, but I was too young to remember that. 

So, returning to Boston will be a joyful event for me; honoring Denis Phillips will be another joyful event.  And the conference will have many other wonderful features—including a Kneller Lecture given by Richard Bernstein, a dialogue on evil between Richard Bernstein and Nel Noddings, and much much more. 

Please plan on joining me, Ron Glass (our Program Chair), Denis Phillips, Nel Noddings, Richard Bernstein and lots of other great folks in Cambridge, Mass. from April 11-14th.  I am hoping it will be one of our best conferences ever. 

Call for Papers - Ron Glass

The Call can be found here. Please forward to all interested, especially those new to the Society. November 1, 2007 is the deadline.

Hospitality Committee - Kelly Kolodny

The site for the PES meeting in April 2008 is Cambridge, Massachusetts. The conference will be held at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, Overlooking Boston which is located on the beautiful Charles River and surrounded by major universities including Harvard, MIT, Boston College, Boston University, and Northeastern. PES members will have access to attractions in both cities of Boston and Cambridge, which makes this conference sight a particular delight.

In Boston, PES members might choose to enjoy Faneuil Hall Marketplace, walk on the Freedom Trail which takes visitors to 16 historical sites in the course of two to three hours, ride the Swan boats in Public Garden Lagoon, or visit one of the many notable museums including the Museum of Science, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum. The enchanting Newbury Street, which is filled with salons, boutiques and fine dining, is located approximately one mile from the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, Overlooking Boston.

In Cambridge, PES might choose to learn about the African American Heritage Trail project and visit the twenty historic plaques located across the city that honor notable African Americans who were abolitionists, authors, educators, and office holders in Cambridge from 1840 to 1940. Member also might visit Harvard Square which contains the world’s largest concentration of book stores. This also is an interesting place to visit because street performers greet visitors at every corner offering music, dramatic performance, juggling and magic. PES members may take the complimentary hotel shuttle to Harvard Square.

The room rate for the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, Overlooking Boston is $139 a night. The hotel contains the Zephyr on the Charles restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining, as well as a state of the art fitness center that contains a 75 foot lap pool and the latest cardio-equipment. Live piano music is played in the lobby area. Those flying to Boston may take a taxi to the hotel for a fare of approximately $35. We look forward to seeing you in April 2008.

Announcements and other Calls for Papers

  • Call for Proposals Educating Women: A Conference on the Status of Research on the Education of Girls and Women for Professors, Students, Teachers, Activists, Researchers and Concerned Citizens. May 29-31, 2008, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum The University of Illinois at Chicago 800 Halstead Street, Chicago, Illinois 60607. Deadline February 1, 2008.
  • Greetings to you all from the Canadian Philosophy of Education Society. We held our annual conference this past May at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. Our conference runs concurrently with the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for Foundations in Education and our umbrella organization, the Canadian Society for Studies in Education. CSSE is itself a member of the Canadian Congress of Humanities and Social Sciences.Our next meeting will be in Vancouver and Anne Chinnery (SFU) will be Programme Coordinator, with help from Daniel Vokey (UBC), Don Cochrane (U of Sask) and Michael J.B. Jackson.
    Please visit our web site to find out more about your northern brothers and sisters in arms. Under Claudia’s expert cyberspatial guidance the CPES web site has undergone an “extreme make-over” and now features the beautiful B.C. coast (and the silhouette of a volunteer who must remain anonymous.)
  • Paideusis, the official journal of CPES, is now on-line and freely accessible to anyone who can get to a computer and onto the internet. Its editor, Heesoon Bai (SFU) has worked wonders with the journal over the past couple of years since taking on the editorship. Do check it out and consider making a submission. The journal is eclectic in orientation and operates with a broad and inclusive conception of the philosophical.
    Should you wish to know more about the Society or any of its activities from a member of the Executive, please contact Walter C. Okshevsky, president (wokshevs@mun.ca) or Claudia Ruitenberg, secretary-treasurer (claudia.ruitenberg@ubc.ca) or immediate-past president Douglas Stewart (douglas.stewart@uregina.ca).
         Walter C. Okshevsky, President, Canadian Philosophy of Education Society
  • Edinburgh University conference on professional reflection and deliberation organised for next March may be of interest to PES members.
  • Call for Proposals, Philosophical Studies in Education SIG
    AERA Annual Meeting, March 24-28, 2008, New York City
    We welcome papers on any topic in education, provided that the primary disciplinary lens or frame can be considered philosophical. As program chair, I am especially interested in papers that address this year's program theme: "Research on Schools, Neighborhoods, and Communities: Toward Civic Responsibility." You do not need to be a member of the Philosophical Studies in Education SIG in order to submit a proposal (although we do invite you to become a member).
    The general AERA call for proposals can be found at http://aera.net/Default.aspx?id=2966 and the deadline for proposals is August 2, 2007.
    In addition to submitting your work to the SIG, another way that you can help us is to volunteer as a paper reviewer. The paper review process takes place between August 2 and mid-September. You’ll typically be sent
    2 or 3 proposals for review. If you are a member of the SIG, you are eligible! Please sign up at http://aera.net/opportunities/?id=1423.
    Please contact the SIG program chair with questions regarding the proposal process: Doris Santoro Gomez, Bowdoin College, 207.798.4309, dsantoro@bowdoin.edu

  • The New England Philosophy of Education Society (NEPES) will hold its 2007 Annual Meeting at Framingham State College in Massachusetts on Saturday, October 13. The keynote speaker for the conference is Dr. Timothy Reagan. In addition to the address by the keynote speaker, concurrent paper sessions also will be facilitated during the conference. Please contact Kelly Kolodny at kkolodny@frc.mass.edu for additional information. The fee for the conference, which includes morning coffee and muffins and lunch is $25. 

  • Upcoming Themes for the Journal of Educational Controversy
    July 2007: Developing Dispositions: Professional Ethic or Political Indoctrination
    January 2008: Schooling as if Democracy Matters
    July 2008: Thinking and Teaching about Poverty and Class http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/CEP/eJournal/

  • INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF PHILOSOPHERS OF EDUCATION (INPE)
    ELEVENTH  BIENNIAL  CONFERENCE, KYOTO UNIVERSITY     9th – 12th August 2008
    CALL  FOR  PAPERS  AND  PRESENTATIONS    . CONFERENCE THEME: Education and multicultural understanding

  • Philosophy of Education Society of Australasian
    The annual PESA conference is in Wellington, New Zealand, in December 2007. The abstracts for this conference may be seen at http://www.pesa.org.au/html/04papers.htm.
    PUBLISHING OPPORTUNITY
    Articles are sought on online education and teacher education.
    "He Kupu" is a new online journal for scholarship associated with online and distance teacher education. The journal publishes a range of contributions, including peer-reviewed articles and practitioner reflections, providing a voice for eTeachers and eLearners by offering an opportunity to publish their own research and to reflect on their experiences of distance education, technology and online learning.
    The journal is underpinned by the belief that the rapid growth of online and web-enhanced teacher education programs provides a rich source of practical knowledge, strategies and reflections that contribute to critical engagement with educational issues. Full papers for peer review, colloquia, research notes, case studies and/or student and practitioner reflections should be submitted to the editors, Andrew Gibbons and Tom McIvor, at andrew.gibbons@nztertiarycollege.ac.nz or tom.mcivor@nztertiarycollege.ac.nz. Subscription is free, sponsored by the New Zealand Tertiary College. Available at http://www.nztertiarycollege.ac.nz/HeKupu/
  • Dr. Raja Ganesan from Chennai (Formerly Madras), India is seeking a visiting position in the US and can offer courses on Indian Philosophies of Education – including Vedanta, Buddhism, Jainism, Nyaya, Carvaka and compare each with corresponding schools of the West; Problem-Finding for Research in Social Sciences and Education. if interested, contact him directly at drajaganesan@rediffmail.com.

New Books by PES members

CONTACT: PES Executive Director Jeff Milligan
850-644-8171; milligan@coe.fsu.edu