UPDATE OVERVIEW

The July Update brings you a Call for Dues for the just-beginning fiscal and membership year 2002-03, greetings from PES President Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon, information from 2003 Program Chair Kal Alston regarding next year’s conference, action summaries from the Board and Membership Meetings in Vancouver, and a series of announcements of potential interest to members.

Also accompanying this Update (and arriving separately if you receive your Update by e-mail) are the Dues Form, a ballot for the Election Committee, the Call for Papers for the Miami Conference, and the Copyright Permission Form to be submitted with papers.  A business reply envelope has been provided for your convenience.  You may use it for dues and/or ballot.

FIRST CALL FOR 2002-03 DUES

Included in this mailing is the dues form for the new year, 2002-03.  Please make your check payable to “Philosophy of Education Society” or complete the required credit card information.  Return the form to Kathy Hytten in the envelope provided.  (No postage necessary!)  You may also wish to take advantage of Pay Pal, a convenient way to pay your dues on-line.  One advantage to using Pay Pal is that the credit card surcharge is slightly lower.  For more information, please visit the PES website at http://philosophyofeducation.org.

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT – Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon

Greetings to you all!  Hope you are enjoying a philosophically satisfying summer and many playful moments to boot. (But is doing philosophy not playful? Perhaps then, our lives are mostly play.  Can that be?).  I hope you are making plans to attend the 59th annual meeting of PES, which will take place in sunny Miami, March 28-31, 2003, at the Royal Palm Crown Plaza Resort.  I leave it to Harvey to supply details about the hotel. You will see from his description that the amenities and location are superb.  We will be having fun!

But the choice of Miami was made for serious as well as fun-loving reasons.  The annual meeting next year will highlight diversity issues.  And what better setting for such discussions?  Indeed, the very location of the hotel, Harvey assures me, will surround us with many cultures and lifestyles.  Just the experience of being in Miami should stimulate our thoughts about the great issues and resources of our pluralistic society.  As Kal Alston, Chair of the program committee notes, Richard (Rick) Shweder, anthropologist from the University of Chicago, will deliver the Kneller Lecture and will take up the topic of pluralism as it relates to education.  His lecture will feature two respondents and will be followed the next day by a panel that will further explore multicultural issues.  Rick will be a part of that panel, and is looking forward to joining us.  His research on such cultural practices such as female circumcision is fascinating and may be familiar to many of you.  In general, I find his work helpful in developing a broader perspective.

In addition to the sessions on diversity, the 2003 annual meeting will feature a new attraction – a "Past Presidents Panel."  Nick Burbules, the next-to immediate past president, is calling upon several other illustrious past PES presidents to explore a topic that remains a surprise even to me at this time.  While there may be moments of levity, the panel will do serious philosophy of education.  Should be wonderful!  So plan to be with us in Miami.  We value your presence enormously.  As Don Arnstine recently put it:  "In my judgment, the single most important function of the meetings of PES is to provide a forum where philosophers of education can exchange ideas with one another…The ongoing life of our organization is dependent mainly on the accumulation of new members, and that new membership is substantially encouraged by the face-to-face contact made possible by attendance at meetings."  In other words, there is no substitute for you:  you make our wonderful conversations and companionship possible.

In order to facilitate attendance by persons who may be reluctant to incur the costs, we have established a PES Legacy Fund.  Inspired by an initial contribution from Nel Noddings, several others have already stepped up to the plate, and pledges to our Legacy Fund stand at $4,700.00.  Our goal is $10,000 by September 1, 2002.  We would love some large gifts, say $1,000, but we encourage contributions of all sizes – whatever you can manage.  If we can get $10,000 or more, the money should earn enough interest to offer assistance to a few people for the coming meeting. By next year, as contributions continue and the money grows, we will be able to fund more requests.

On your dues notice, you will see an opportunity to support the Legacy Fund.  Please know that your gift, of whatever size, is very important and will facilitate attendance at meetings for years to come.  It's a worthy cause!  Enjoy the remainder of the summer and think Miami, 2003!

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS  — Kal Alston

Kal Alston, Program Committee Chair, reports that planning for the 2003 Conference is well underway as she works with President Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon.  We are excited about the location in Miami. We have confirmed Richard Shweder as the Kneller Lecturer, and the Program Committee will continue to work to construct a program that lives up to the exciting conference setting!  The Program Committee at this time consists of Eduardo Duarte, Natasha Levinson, Susan Laird, Sharon Bailin, Stephen Norris, Tom Schwandt, Stephen Haymes, Chris Higgins, Dilafruz Williams, and Stacey Smith.

The quality of the program depends on you, of course, and your timely submission of careful, interesting, provocative papers.  Please attend to the Call for Papers that accompanies this Update; specifications, dates and contact information are listed.  A style sheet for papers can be found on the web at http://cuip.uchicago.edu/pes/stylesheet.htm.   All submissions must be accompanied by a Copyright Permission Form.  In addition, potential presenters should indicate their A-V needs with their submission (Please note:  50% of rental costs will be borne by the presenter).  The Call for Papers and the Copyright Permission Form are also available at the web site http://philosophyofeducation.org.  Deadline for receipt of papers is November 1, 2002.  E-mail inquiries can be directed to Kal at k-alston@uiuc.edu.

EARLY INFORMATION FROM THE HOSPITALITY COMMITTEE  - Harvey Seigel

The Hospitality Committee for PES 2003 would like to invite all PES members to attend the Annual Conference in Miami, on Miami Beach, March 28-31, 2003.  Miami is an exciting, international city, and the conference will take place in the city's most exciting and multicultural area:  South Beach.  Famous for its beaches, restaurants, ethnic mix, night life, and enthusiasm for unconventional activities and lifestyles, SoBe is the perfect place to philosophize (and much else!).  Plan on staying a few extra days to enjoy the beach, travel to the nearby Everglades and Keys, or explore this dynamic, one-of-a-kind city. 

The conference will be held in the recently opened Royal Palm Crowne Plaza Resort, 1545 Collins Avenue (at Ocean Drive) on South Beach.  This remarkable structure, featuring the completely restored/rebuilt Royal Palm and Shorecrest Hotels (which date from the 1930s) and a brand new tower facing the ocean designed to capture and complement the art deco style of the earlier hotels, is an architectural gem.  The hotel's luxurious but 'laid back' feel, and proximity to all that SoBe has to offer, will offer a striking contrast to previous PES meetings.  Don't miss it!  Room rates:  $159 plus tax single or double, plus $10 Resort fee (which covers all manner of beach and water equipment).  For reservations, go on line (below) or call 1-800-2CROWNE.  Make sure you mention PES to get the conference rate.

For information on Miami and its beaches, visit

http://www.miamiandbeaches.com

For information on the hotel, visit

http://www.crowneplaza.com

ELECTION OF THE ELECTION COMMITTEE – Ballot included

Please choose seven (7) names from the candidates listed:

Kal Alston

Heesoon Bai

Wally Feinberg

Stephen Haymes

Michael Katz

Deborah Kerdeman

Susan Laird

Kathryn Morgan

Stephen Norris

Harvey Siegel

Barbara Stengel

Return your ballot no later than September 15^th to Executive Secretary Kathy Hytten.  You may use the business reply envelope enclosed for that purpose.  If you return dues and ballot together, you may enclose your ballot in an unmarked sealed envelope to preserve anonymity.

A PLEA FOR MEMBERS AND IDEAS FOR RECRUITING THEM – Michael S. Katz 

Now that PES welcomes people genuinely interested in Philosophy of Education and not merely those who have been formally trained in this discipline, and given a drop of between 50 and 75 members in the past two years, I appeal to all PES members to do two things:  a) take it upon yourselves to recruit 1-2 new members this year by explaining to them the benefits of membership--Ed. Theory, the Yearbook, opportunities for email networking etc.; b) consider vehicles, websites, other organizations where we can post an ad for free.  Please share these with me, Michael Katz, membership chair, at mskatz1@earthlink.net.   We will be informing you soon of a more systematic approach we will be taking as we plan a campaign to increase our membership, but each one of you counts significantly in this effort.  Do your part and keep in touch.

ELECTION RESULTS

As those attending the Vancouver Conference know, Francis Schrag has been named President Elect.  Michael Katz was elected to the Executive Board and Deborah Kerdeman was elected to COPA.  Congratulations to all and thanks for their willingness to serve!   Thanks too to those who are rotating out of these responsibilities:  Past Past-President Nicholas C. Burbules, retiring Board member Audrey Thompson, and COPA representative Lynda Stone.  Recognition is due to Ann Diller (Chair) and the Election Committee (Megan Boler, Dwight Boyd, David Hansen, Susan Laird, Frank Margonis, and Harvey Siegel) for a job well done.

MEETING MINUTES – ACTION SUMMARY

Minutes for Board and Membership meetings conducted at the annual Conference can be viewed on the Society’s web site (http://philosophyofeducation.org).  Corrections and comments may be forwarded to Kathy Hytten (khytten@siu.edu).  In brief, the following actions were taken:

·         The Executive Board approved the formation of an Investment Committee to help the Executive Secretary plan to achieve financial security.  Michael Katz, Bob Floden and Barb Stengel were named to this committee.  Other interested members may approach Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon about serving.  This committee will also investigate the best way to handle the Legacy Fund.

·         The Executive Board approved a new dues structure based on annual income, regardless of rank or employment.

                        Income under $30,000                                                $30.00            

                        $30,000 – $39,999                                                     $40.00

                        $40,000 – $49,999                                                      $50.00

                        $50,000 – $59,999                                                     $60.00

                        $60,000 – $69,999                                                     $70.00

                        $70,000 & over                                                          $80.00

·         A motion for President Sophie Haroutunian-Gordon to appoint a committee to examine the role of COPA and report back to the membership was approved. 

·         Barb Stengel circulated a proposal (as part of the Executive Secretary’s Report) that, as a matter of policy and procedure, committee chairs and members be named and approved at the annual meeting by the incoming President and take office at the start of the fiscal year on July 1st.  This would allow time for orientation and transition.  Barb Houston moved to approve the proposal; Katz seconded.  It passed unanimously.

·         The status of the Fellows membership category was again discussed, and will be returned to the agenda for the next meeting.

MEMBER SERVICES

You may stay in touch with PES electronically by emailing help@philosophyofeducation.org.  If your email address has changed, please let us know.   You can also find all the information (including membership forms, Call for Papers, etc.) you need at our web site, reachable at http://philosophyofeducation.org.   If you check in now, you can view pictures of the 2002 Conference taken by the UNH contingent to the meeting, courtesy of web builder Craig Cunningham.  Craig has also created a space for posting job openings.  Forward job announcements to Craig at cac@cuip.net, to Jobs for Philosophers Chair Barbara Thayer-Bacon at bthayer@utk.edu, or to Kathy Hytten at help@philosophyofeducation.org.  We have also begun using Pay Pal as web service for membership renewal and dues payment.  Please see the web site for more information.

KEEPING TRACK OF EACH OTHER

A number of veteran PES members have changed positions/locations in the past year and graduate student members were successful in claiming academic positions for the first time.  While it is impossible for us to reprint all the comings and goings with contact information in this space, we would like to assist members in keeping track of each other.  If you are changing positions and would like to notify colleague friends of this fact, send an e-mail with new affiliation to help@philosophyofeducation.org.  (Don’t forget to include full contact info so we can make the change in PES files).  We will list changes received and direct members to the website for contact information. 

Here are several moves that have come to our attention:

·        Pamela Courtenay-Hall - From the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia to the Department of Philosophy at the University of Prince Edward Island.

·        Douglas J. Simpson – From the College of Education & Human Development at the University of Louisville, to Texas Tech University as the first Helen DeVitt Jones Chair in Teacher Education.

·        Daniel Vokey - From the University of Prince Edward Island to the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia.

Best wishes to all in their new positions.

CALLS AND CONFERENCES OF POTENTIAL INTEREST

·        The Far Western Philosophy of Education Society invites you to join us for its 50th anniversary celebration, January 16-18th, 2003 at the University of Hawaii, Manoa.   The theme of this annual conference is "Philosophy of Education as Pedagogy, Praxis and Policy."   In launching our new journal "Provocateur":  Philosophy of Education as Pedagogy, Praxis, and Policy, we see this conference as an opportunity to lay forth the design of an integrated and transdisciplinary approach to philosophical discourse about local and global problems in education.  For more information, or to submit an abstract (by September 15th, 2002).  Please contact:         

B. Jeannie Lum, Ph.D.
University of Hawaii, Manoa
1775 University Avenue
College of Education
Educational Foundations, Wist 109
Honolulu, HI, 96822

or email:  jlum@hawaii.edu

A website:  www.hawaii.edu/jlum/FWPES will be up and running in July for more information on the conference, reservations, lodging, fees, etc.

·        Astonishing Silences ...The Northwest Philosophy of Education Society will gather on October 18 (evening) and 19 (morning and afternoon), 2002, at the University of British Columbia, to engage in the adventures and challenges of living well and wisely in the world.  Acknowledging that philosophy is always plural, we invite educators from diverse traditions to converse with the knowledge we need to respect all our relations living in the worlds of the Pacific Northwest.  Remembering the roots of philosophy as loving wisdom, let us express our local wisdom in seeking ways to love and to live wisely together.  The NWPES Conference is co-hosted by The Centre for the Study of Curriculum and Instruction, the Ts''kel (Golden Eagle) Program, and the Department of Educational Studies.  Please, see the website for more information and for the call for papers (needed by August 31): http://www.goodpages.net/nwpes2002/.

·        The Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society will be meeting on September 27-28, 2002 at the Bergamo Conference Center in Dayton, Ohio.  The theme of the meeting is "Pedagogical Encounter and the Human Condition:  Philosophizing Education in a World of Broken bodies and Broken hearts."  The Phil Smith Lecture will be delivered by Lewis Gordon, Director of Africana Studies, Professor of Africana Studies and Modern Culture and Media at Brown University.  The title of Dr. Gordon's will be "The Human Condition in an Age of Disciplinary Decadence:  Thoughts on Knowing and Learning."  Dr. Gordon is the author of numerous articles and books in Africana philosophy, religion, literary theory, philosophy of human sciences, phenomenology, philosophy of existence, and philosophy of education.  He is the author of  Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism (Humanities Press, 1995), Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences (Routledge, 1995), Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), and Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought (Routledge, 2000).  For more information about the OVPES annual meeting, contact Kathleen Knight Abowitz (knightk2@muohio.edu).

·        The Seventh Annual Values and Leadership Conference will take place from Thursday, October 3 to Saturday, October 5, 2002 at OISE / University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, Ontario.  For more information on the conference, and an application form, please visit the Centre web site at http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~pbegley/.  The title theme of this year's conference is Responding to Ethical Dilemmas: Personal and Professional Challenges of Educational Leadership.  In addition to a slate of world class scholars as keynoters and presenters, organizers are also keen to accept an additional 36 papers on themes related to values and leadership to be presented during the concurrent sessions. Proposal submission is easy.  Send your paper title and a 100 word abstract to Paul Begley (pbegley@csolve.net) by August 1.  Proposals will be reviewed by mid-August.  Full papers are due September 1 so we can include them in CD record of proceedings that will be produced in advance.

·        The Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, in the School of Education, organizes a Postgraduate Course (320 hours) about "Moral Education and Civic Education in the Educational System", to be given in Spanish from Feb., 4, 2003 to June, 4, 2003.  The Director is Dr. José A. Ibáñez-Martín, a Professor of Philosophy if Education at the Complutense University of Madrid.  The participants should have a high level University degree.  More details on the web at http://www.ucm.es/info/quiron/edmoral.

MEMORIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Deceased:  George L. Newsome, Jr., fall 2001.  George was a past president, secretary-treasurer, and program chairman of PES during the1970's.  He also contributed numerous articles to Educational Theory and the Proceedings.  George received his doctorate in philosophy of education from Yale University under the tutelage of John Brubacher.  He spent much of his professional teaching and research, mainly at the University of Georgia, in trying to make sense of pedagogical discourse.

OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST

·        We received a moving letter from a long time member of the Philosophy of Education Society, Abraham Edel, Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania, which reads as follows.  “I have received your Advance Registration Form and regret I shall not be coming to the April meeting in Vancouver.  I recall with pleasure meetings over the years which I attended with some regularity, particularly one held in Los Angeles where I read a paper on “John Dewey’s Philosophy of Education,” only to find afterward that Dewey had been listening to it (the paper was the starting point for my later book, Ethical Theory and Social Change, The Evolution of John Dewey’s Ethics, 1908-1932).  Dewey was then 92 (which is close to what I am now (93).  He was quite vigorous – almost as vigorous in action as in thought.  I met him in the street the next day and walked with him; it wasn’t easy to keep up with his stride.  I remember saying “your stride is as swift as your thought – is that due to your belief in the unity of thought and action?”  His answer was:  “nothing so fancy as that – I just exercise every day.”

·        If you have not yet done so, there is still time to send your foundations syllabi to Lucille Eckrich.  She has already received syllabi for her research and for the syllabi clearinghouse from about 30 PES members.  So, if you teach undergraduate or masters foundations courses to students being certified to teach in public schools and have not yet sent her your syllabus, take a moment to email it--saved as a separate attachment in Microsoft Word or as a RTF file--to her at lteckri@ilstu.edu.

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY’S NOTES – Kathy Hytten

For those of you paying attention, this newsletter marks the transition of the executive secretary role from Barb Stengel, to me.  I can’t thank Barb enough for all the help she has given me (and will continue to give me) in order to make this transition smoothly.  There is still a lot I have to learn, so I hope you will be patient over the next few months as I figure out all the responsibilities entailed in this role, which at this point are more than I imagined.  While we have been back from Vancouver for several months now, I think all involved in the conference deserve our appreciation for a well run, and philosophically stimulating conference.  Special thanks go to President Barb Houston, Program Committee Chair Scott Fletcher, Hospitality Coordinator Heesoon Bai and Educational Theory Business Manager Diane Beckett, who handled the bulk of registration.  

As mentioned in Michael Katz comments above, unfortunately, our membership numbers and paid conference attendee numbers are both down.  While we had over 200 paid attendees in Chicago, there were only 168 in Vancouver.  Similarly, our paid membership numbers are down from 476 in 00-01 to 433 for 01-02.  As the health of our organization depends on the strength of its membership, I’d encourage those of you who haven’t paid back dues to please submit them with your upcoming dues payment.  Your last date of paid dues is listed on your mailing label.  There are a number of you who attend conferences regularly, and are otherwise active members, yet who have not paid membership fees in several years.  It is especially important that we collect these fees as our investments are far from thriving in the current financial climate.  Additionally, one way we can save money is on postage – especially as the postal rates have just increased.  Currently many of you request paper copies of this update (179 of you, to be specific).  If you aren’t sure if you have made this request, you will know when you get the mailing with the ballot and call for papers.  If you have access to email, and could just as easily receive the update through that format, please email me (khytten@siu.edu) and let me know.  In addition, the update is also always posted on the web.  In fact, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns, or simply if you would like to check the status of your membership.  I hope that you are all enjoying what remains of the summer break.