“Academic leaders hold open forum on philosophy, classics” plus 3 more

Academic leaders hold open forum on philosophy, classics
Fouling the shores of good, clean philosophy
Local YHS grad to receive PhD in Molecular Biosciences
PRINCETON: Solo acts by Township raise consolidation doubts

Academic leaders hold open forum on philosophy, classics

Posted: 06 May 2010 01:58 PM PDT

Academic leaders hold open forum on philosophy, classics

Written by Dustin Eckroth Tuesday, 04 May 2010 02:00

Thomas Riley, dean of arts, humanities, and social sciences, and Craig Schnell, provost and vice president of academic affairs, held an open forum last Thursday to discuss the future of the philosophy and classical language programs.

With the closing of the Cardinal Muench Seminary in Fargo, NDSU will lose two of its four philosophy faculty members and both of its classical language faculty.

After a brief history of the relationship between NDSU and the seminary, Riley discussed the most immediate situation: there are 44 students currently majoring in philosophy-humanities and the five majoring in classical languages.

In the worst-case scenario, Schnell said, both programs would be closed to future majors, all classical language classes would be gone, and a large number of general education philosophy classes would have to be eliminated.

According to Riley, however, it's important to look past the numbers, emphasizing that the importance of philosophy and classics spread to many areas. "It's been shown that the most successful scientists have a classical language background," Riley said.

"A number of students would be happy to have at least one year of Latin or Greek," Schnell said. Classics professor Carol Andreini added that the First-Year Latin class is nearly always at maximum enrollment.

In addition, the philosophy department teaches three to four sections of Business Ethics per semester, a course that is required for the business program to receive its accreditation. The classes are currently so full that no students outside of the business school are allowed to take them, philosophy program coordinator Dennis Cooley said.

"[Philosophy Lecturer] Brad Morris has 500 to 600 students a semester, which is way too many for one person to handle," Cooley said while explaining the need for more faculty.

The main problem, Schnell said, is to find funding for the programs in the midst of several budget cuts; an $800,000 chunk of NDSU's state budget was recently reallocated to the state's smaller colleges and universities.

"This fall, NDSU had 960 more students enroll than the previous semester, with no additions to faculty, and no additional funding from the state," Schnell said. "This increase alone should have created 40 new faculty positions."

"These options are only a band-aid fix," Schnell said regarding the worst-case scenario. "We'd like to see a more permanent solution so the programs can grow. I know you'd like a guarantee, and I'd like one too, but things are too uncertain at this time."

Cooley shared three other potential options for the future of the philosophy-humanities program and the major, assuming new faculty hires.

In the first plan, one new lecturer would have to be hired in addition to Cooley and Morris, currently the only philosophy faculty whose salaries are paid by NDSU. While some classes would have to be dropped, this option would still allow for some general education courses and enough for the philosophy-humanities major.

The other two options focused on the addition of two new lecturers to the department. This would allow for expansion and growth, allowing the department to serve general education needs and offer a variety of classes for the major.

According to Cooley, the new lecturers could be funded entirely through the department's appropriated funds, an expense of over $100,000 per year. Cooley also suggested the lecturers be funded partially through the Distance and Continuing Education program, meaning a number of classes would have to be taught online.

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Fouling the shores of good, clean philosophy

Posted: 06 May 2010 07:53 AM PDT

Let's talk about the alleged moral neutrality of economic recklessness!

Some time ago, Anitra "She Who Gives Up Teasing Conservatives For Lent" Freeman got into an extended online debate with a self-described Libertarian. I'll call him Larry. Larry the Libertarian argued that not only should it be legal to carry firearms everywhere in public, including privately-owned but open-to-the-public spaces, but it should also be legal to fire them randomly. The theory was, if I understood it correctly, if a .50-caliber bullet from an assault rifle hit something it shouldn't, like somebody's ill-placed baby, or some liberal's unfortunately-parked precious Prius, THEN you can go ahead and charge them with reckless endangerment of life or property. But if the bullet lands safely in a planter, recklessness could not in fact be assumed to have occurred.

"Random my ass" would be the legal plea in court. One man's random is another man's intended. But Larry argued it should not go to court at all, because to charge a crime when you know no harm was done is harassment and violates the constitutional and human right we all have to do anything we want up until someone gets hurt, without being bothered.

When you lay it out like I just did, as taking a chance with babies and such, the argument sounds terribly wrong somehow, and I'd say four out of five people would say Larry the Libertarian is an immoral freak.

Personally, I agree with Larry, insofar as agreeing that you can't charge someone with recklessness who hasn't done harm. That's just good clean philosophy, and I've been to college so I'm all for good clean philosophy. But, not being a 100 percent total nutter for libertarianism, or for any other ism, I have a simple non-libertarian way out of that difficulty. I'm fine with a few very carefully thought out laws spelling out where and when it is not OK to fire off a firearm. So you don't have to charge recklessness, you charge violation of the regulation. Too bad 100 percent Libertarians can't take that leap.

I think it's a wonderful thing, by the way, to not subscribe 100 percent to any given ideology. I recommend it to everyone. Instead of being 100 percent capitalist or 100 percent socialist, try being (or thinking in terms of) what works best for each set of problems. Wear the hats, don't let one of the hats wear you.

Here's an opinion I cling to and revolve around my head. One hundred percent of any ideology destroys that ideology. In this regard ideologies differ from salads. You can have a salad that's 100 percent croutons. It won't be a good salad, especially if the "dressing" also consists entirely of croutons. But you can have it, if that's the salad you want. You can have all of it, and probably no one will complain when you don't share. But you can't have a 100 percent socioeconomic ideology, because it will destroy itself on its own terms.

Example: 100 percent Unregulated Free Enterprise creates the conditions in which it is never reckless to build offshore oil rigs until they sink and spill thousands of gallons of oil. But when those conditions lead to the inevitable massive spill, they also lead to the inevitable natural limits on the Free Enterprise of the crab and oyster fisherman, not to mention the end of the Free Enterprise of many a turtle, who was not bothering anyone and was going to make a fine Creole soup.

Totally Managed Economies don't work either. I don't want five-year plans and bread lines. I don't want to have to read from Mao's Little Red Book at mandatory social re-education classes during my breaks at the state shoelace factory. I don't like Heroic Social Realist art. The fact is, Totally Managed Economies don't stay managed, while everything else gets over-managed.

But I also don't want your Untrammeled Capitalism to shoot my baby, and it would be sweet, too, if I could find me some shrimp that didn't taste like petroleum.

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Local YHS grad to receive PhD in Molecular Biosciences

Posted: 07 May 2010 02:13 AM PDT

Submitted Story

Yerington High School graduate Juanita Mathews, a Co-Valedictorian in 1997 and the daughter of Miria Miranda and Dale Mathews, will receive a Doctorate of Philosophy (PhD) in Molecular Biosciences from the University of Hawaii at Manoa on Saturday, May 15.

After graduating from YHS, Mathews earned a Bachelor os Science degree in Biochemistry at the University of Nevada, Reno, and then worked for Sierra Sciences in Reno as a lab administrator and researcher on anti-aging. She later moved on to work at Siga Technologies in Corvallis, OR, specializing in anti-terrorism vaccines and antibiotics; and followed that effort up by researching neuro-degenerative disorders like Alzheimer's. Parkinson's and ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) at the Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland.

While pursuing her PhD at Hawaii-Manoa, Mathews taught numerous courses in biology, her field of research at UHM; and her dissertation was titled 'Characterization of hydrogen production by engineered Escherichia Coli in a rich defined media,' which, layman's terms, is the study of how to get hydrogen from a bacteria's DNA. The principle is that by securing a simple, sustainable way to produce hydrogen, the world would benefit from a clean burning fuel for power, cars, etc.

Because the health of the plant for future generations ins near and dear to her heart, Mathews also co-founded the nonprofit organization Make Us a Sustainable Earth (MUSE( in 2009.

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PRINCETON: Solo acts by Township raise consolidation doubts

Posted: 07 May 2010 02:06 AM PDT

Five Filters featured article: The Art of Looking Prime Ministerial - The 2010 UK General Election. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.