Alice to Now: a bit of your time
This episode compares the course expectations and syllabi, outlined by two introductory philosophy courses, from 84 years apart. Both are from the philosophy department at Smith College, written or co-written by a woman in the field. Listen if you want to learn more about the ways in which time impacts curriculum.
Listen to the podcast HERE
Image from: https://herald-review.com/alice-ambrose-28/image_d01e2e2e-f073-11e5-9ad2-c3a76b83400b.html
References
Helke, T., Garfield, J., & Yates, M. (n.d.). How to Ace Logic . How to Ace, PHI 102 Syllabus Fall 2021. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TBjHAdLlUeRfE9DT_renlF1HSJaWoQnanfmO85CJshY/edit#heading=h.hufudxlikrck.
Hull, R. T. (2021, April 15). Biography: Alice Ambrose Lazerowitz – 2013. The American Philosophical Association Centennial Series. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.pdcnet.org/apapa/content/apapa_2013_0353_0355_253?file_type=pdf.
Massey University, N. Z. (n.d.). Prof Adriane Rini – Professor – Massey University. Retrieved November 22, 2021, from https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/expertise/profile.cfm?stref=330630.
Transcript
N:Welcome to “kNOw women in philosophy”, the podcast which dispels the myth that there are no women in philosophy
S:This is season 2: Students and mistresses of Philosophy. In this season, we turn to women who studied or taught philosophy at Smith from the 1880s to 1980s
N: Hi I am Nathalie
S: And I am Sarah and today we are going to compare the course expectations and curriculum, outlined by two introductory philosophy courses from 84 years apart. Both are from the philosophy department at Smith College, written or co-written by a woman in the field.
N: Our first course description is created by Alice Ambrose. Alice is a huge name in the Smith college philosophy community, as the second woman in the department to achieve such success. She followed closely in the footsteps of Anna Cutler, who you can hear more about in other episodes from this season. But today, we are glad that here we can help share Alice’s story.
S: Alice was born in 1906 and started teaching at Smith as a 31 year old in 1937. She worked mainly in the logic sect of philosophy and that is the class that her syllabus reflects. She moved up in rank during her 35 year career at Smith from instructor to professor Emerita in 1972. She did not end her connection with Smith there though, Alice continued to guest lecture at the College up until her death in 2001.
N: Alice was a strong character and it shows in her archival material. Not only did she clock an unbelievable number of hours at Smith, she spoke in a way that reflected a similar sense of dedication. We got a taste of her personality from a guest speaker, Adriane Rini, who has researched the character, material and world of Alice. Here is a clip we have from that class of Adriane describing Alice.
S: Now that the picture is painted of who Alice was, let’s start to unpack the course that she outlined for her class.
N: The text that we are using is from the 1938-1942 course catalog. It is a large brown book with gold lettering on it. If you sat it flat down on a table the pages stack at least five inches high. This book contains that entire transcript of each year’s course catalogue. This is how students used to choose the classes they wanted.
S: That is so different from today, the online aspect of course registration is so imperative to how we live today that it is hard to imagine going about it any other way. I speculate that nowadays, professors are allotted a higher word count because uploading descriptions online is much easier than making them in print. Keep this in mind as we describe Alice’s entry.
N: The book starts with an introduction to the general regulations at smith including, tuition, scholarship opportunities, graduation requirements, and studying abroad information. It also details standardized practices such as grading policies and attendance expectations. These are things that today are more or less decided by professors individually.
S: In the 1938 section of the course catalogue, Alice’s second year at Smith, you flip through the departments alphabetically until you get to philosophy. Under the philosophy heading are listed the faculty members. Alice, at this point, is an assistant professor.
N: Under her title, the first course is described. This is An Introduction to Philosophy. This course is offered in multiple sections, noted by the M T F and W Th F labels. It also is co-taught by five different professors, all members of the department listed above excluding the teaching fellow. In the description of the course you learn that this introductory course will use readings to guide discussions on “the relation of mind and body, the sources of knowledge, freedom and determinism and the nature and source of ideals.” It follows by informing the prospective student that the course is worth three credit hours.
S: That is not an easy sentence to understand the first go round. This is a dense and brief entry, but there are some things we can infer from the entry. Introductory philosophy bust has been a sought after course because there were five separate sections of the course. We can also assume that this course is required for admittance into the other courses within the department.
N: We will say that it is impossible to know who wrote that description. However if we keep reading, the next course is logic, taught solely by Alice. This course description is one sentence long. The course is worth three credit hours and taught in one section. She describes it as, “an introduction to logic, treating the general characteristics of argument, the nature of theories, and the results obtained by the application of rigorous LOGICAL methods to philosophy and the allied fields.”
S: That too is difficult to understand at first. We still cannot determine why the nature of the entry is so difficult to comprehend but we can compare it to a course description from today.
N: Our modern evidence is the current syllabus of Philosophy 102, the current course offered at Smith that equates with introductory philosophy with ties into logic.
S: This syllabus is a 25 page packet outlining everything you need to know about the course and semester. It starts with a table of contents that organizes the following sections, notably including things like instructors, locations, grading policies, course expectations and office hours information.
S: What you notice first when reading this syllabus is the humor. In the preface section for the course, the basic content is outlined and to follow it continues, “To help you cope, we’ve prepared this booklet. Read it carefully. We’ve written it with great care. We’ve checked every detail. We’re proud to say that everything you read here is completely correct. We know, of course, that we aren’t perfect. Consequently, we’re ashamed to say that this booklet contains an error.”
N: The tone of this syllabus is inviting. The jokes are used strategically to keep the reader engaged while also being informative. Alice approaches the course description differently. It is hard to say if it has to do with the nature of the book her description was in or if her personality would lead her down a more serious path, but the tone of Alice’s writing lacks any humor.
S: Notice also in the same passage the use of the pronoun “we”. The Philosophy 102 course, much like the introduction to philosophy from the 1938 course, is taught by multiple faculty members. This particular course is assigned three instructors. From this similarity we can infer a similar conclusion, that this course is expected to have high enrolment numbers.
N: Other notable aspects of this syllabus is the homework grading policy. In this course, homework is graded in two ways. The first one counts towards a student’s final course grade and it assesses their effort. The second grade does not count for anything and it reflects an assessment of a student’s understanding of the course material. The second grade is meant as an indicator of whether or not there is material that you need to review because, “logic is cumulative.”
S: Think back to Alice’s course. She was unable to elaborate on how she wanted to grade the course because that was pre-determined by the school. I would want to know if she would have changed the grading policies if she had the option? Perhaps she would have agreed with the more modern take on grading. It’s impossible to know.
N: When looking at both of these courses and descriptions of them, we were able to find both similarities and differences. From archival evidence as well as secondary sources we can make inferences about the differences in tone between the two entries. We can also draw conclusions about the time periods based on grading policies and word count allotments. It is also interesting to think about the way the time period impacted the teaching style and freedom within the curriculum that professors may have had or not had.
N: Thank you all for listening to this episode of kNOw women in philosophy. I am Nathalie
S: and I am Sarah. Special thanks to the Smith College archives, Adrienne Rini, and the sound people. This podcast was written by Posey Lester-Niles and edited by Abby Sweeny. You can find more women and philosophy related content at Sophia.smith.edu
RELEVANT Links
A link to a folder with archival materials:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xhiPb5cYqve3s-QPrLv-WlRqIIwViDhV?usp=sharing
More information on Adriane Rini, our guest speaker:
https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/expertise/profile.cfm?stref=330630