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Winter newsletter

1/17/2015

Winter Newsletter (AY '14-'15)

Chapter Updates

In this past semester, MAP welcomed 16 new chapters, bringing our total to 43 chapters. These span the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and most recently, New Zealand (welcome, Wellington)! Several of our chapters are led by enthusiastic undergraduates at departments that lack a graduate program. You can see an updated list of these chapters here. Some highlights from the semester:

Arizona State started a Gender and Race Reading Group and writing workshops for undergraduate students.
Binghamton made one of their regular Professional Development Workshops about issues that students from underrepresented groups face on the job market.
CUNY hosted two talks: an info panel on the grad school application process (for CUNY undergraduates) and a talk on retaining marginalized students in philosophy courses (for philosophy teachers).
Edinburgh held its annual New Enlightenment Lecture, which was this year delivered by Rae Langton. This was preceded by a roundtable discussion of the issues surrounding underrepresentation in philosophy, and practical measures to be taken.
Georgetown hosted a screening and discussion of “Fruitvale Station” that brought in nearly 50 students.
Leeds hosted a workshop on implicit bias.
Pittsburgh started its “Conversations with…” series, which brings in faculty from underrepresented groups in the philosophy and history and philosophy of science departments. The first speaker, Anja Jauernig, discussed her experiences as a woman and non-U.S. native in philosophy.

MAP Projects

POSTER PROJECT: Our US chapters are now receiving an original MAP poster to hang in their departments, which was designed and illustrated by Renee Bolinger (USC):

Thanks to Elizabeth Anderson, Tina Fernandes Botts, Lorraine Mayer, Howard McGary, Eduardo Mendieta, Manuel Vargas, Shay Welch, and Kyle Whyte for their contributions.

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COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS: As announced last semester, four teams of MAP volunteers from multiple chapters have been developing resources on various topics, which will be available on our website this year. Each resource is targeted at equipping chapters, departments, and individuals to better address MAP's goals.

We are very excited to share a new resource from the TA Best Practices Resource Project Team: the "Best Practices for the Inclusive Philosophy Classroom" site includes resources for diversifying syllabi, methods for increasing fairness in grading, as well as advice on structuring inclusive classroom discussion. The creators welcome suggestions and contributions, and can be reached at map.gap.teaching@gmail.com. Thanks to everyone for all of their hard work on this!

Call for Volunteers
Below, we have listed the contact person(s) for each of our other collaborative projects. Every project needs more volunteers, so if you have any advice, resources, or suggestions, or (best of all) would like to join, please get in touch with the individual(s) listed below! (This is especially true if you have any experience running a Climate Survey.)

Mental Health Resource Project: Sherri Lynn Conklin (conklin.sherri@gmail.com)
Project Description: Develop a resource for chapters interested in starting a discussion about how mental health issues contribute to diversity in philosophy. This project will involve compiling online/text resources and related organizations, as well as providing a platform for sharing and documenting experiences with disclosure, mentoring, time-management, and stigma.

The following two projects will likely be combining their efforts this semester to generate one resource; if you are interested in either aspect, we recommend reaching out to both contacts.

Data Gathering Resource Project: Nabeel Hamid (nabeel.hamid@gmail.com)
Project Description: Develop a resource for chapters interested in gathering data about the demographics of their department, undergraduate climate, undergraduate perceptions of the major, of philosophy courses, etc.

Climate Survey Resource Project: Lucy Munguia (lmm327@cornell.edu)
Project Description: Develop a standard climate survey and/or a resource for departments attempting to design a climate survey, with tips about question design, anonymity, feedback analysis, etc.

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UPCOMING PROJECTS:

UAlbany Symposium on Implicit Judgment. The student body at UAlbany has a high proportion of black (14.5%), Latino (12.4%), Asian (7.1%), and first-generation students. The UAlbany MAP, which meets monthly, consists of 22 undergraduates, 5 graduates, a faculty advisor, and three faculty mentors. With the symposium, UAlbany aims to encourage students from underrepresented groups to engage with philosophy and to “contribute to the philosophical study of the scientific and normative implications of implicit judgment by bringing together researchers in philosophy and psychology.”
California regional MAP collaboration. This meeting will bring together the MAP chapters at UC Riverside, UC Irvine, UCLA, USC, and UC Santa Barbara for a series of roundtable discussions and workshops on the topic of ‘Philosophy and Pedagogy’. The event will serve as an opportunity for graduate networking and scholarly exploration between several MAP chapters.

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MENTORSHIP: As of this month, we will be suspending our US mentorship program. The program was started in order to connect students to professors they may not otherwise know about. We feel this role has been superceded by the (more easily navigable) UPDirectory, and encourage participants to migrate over if they haven't signed up already. A hearty thank-you to the 80+ mentors who signed up for the program! We hope that the time and resources put into maintaining the US program can be redirected for other MAP projects. The UK mentorship program will resume shortly with the new incoming UK leadership (see below).

MAP regions

MAP UK has grown to seven chapters in the last year:

- King’s College London - University of Edinburgh - University of Bristol
- University of Glasgow - University of Leeds
- University of Sheffield - University of Oxford

The region also has its own Twitter!

We thank the first UK Regional Director, Filippo Contesi (York), for his tireless work in organizing the MAP UK region. Having launched the region successfully, Contesi now passes the baton to the new organizers of MAP UK: Natalie Ashton (Edinburgh), Saloni De Souza (Oxford), and Sophie Stammers (Regional Director; King's College London).

We welcome our new organizers and look forward to the continued growth of MAP UK. As MAP grows in other regions, we will solicit applications for regional directorships.

Thanks for your continued support of MAP. And if you missed them, be sure to check out:

Our end-of-year report on lessons learned across chapters in our first year.
Our Facebook and UK Twitter.
Stumped for chapter activities? Check out our suggested activities or events from 2013-14.

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