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CAVE HILL PHILOSOPHY SYMPOSIUM 2008

CONVERSATIONS IV:
REFLECTIONS ON TERTIARY EDUCATION

University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados
February 28-29, 2008

"To apply the values and ethics of the corporation to social and human undertakings, such as education and research, not to mention governance, medicine and other professions whose ultimate focus is human well being, is a travesty of their underlying purposes." Paul Ernest

The theme for the fourth instalment of the Cave Hill Philosophy Symposium (CHiPS) will be education, more specifically tertiary education. This area has been selected because 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the University of the West Indies, a university which began as an elite institution, but which has now turned to mass tertiary education, due in part to shifts that have occurred in thinking about the place of tertiary level education within Caribbean society. This is not a phenomenon that is unique to the Caribbean, however. We are therefore interested in exploring issues such as the roles of tertiary education, its value, the relationship between tertiary level education and development, gender issues in such education, teaching and learning, and the place of vocational training.

The keynote speaker will be Emeritus Professor Paul Ernest, a very distinguished mathematics educator, who helped create the field of the Philosophy of Mathematics Education. He continues to edit a journal devoted to this area, which covers not only technical mathematical issues but wider social and political concerns.

CHiPS welcomes papers that offer philosophical explorations of these and similar issues. The tradition that has developed in our philosophical conversations at CHiPS is one where views from varying philosophical traditions and regional philosophies are welcome, and the hope is that the contributions for Conversations IV will continue this trend. The Symposium also welcomes papers of a theoretical nature in the disciplines that share a boundary with philosophy; disciplines such as critical theory, cultural studies, law, linguistics, political theory, theology, and others. Papers with such an orientation should grapple with the relevance or contribution of particular philosophical ideas or approaches to the understanding of tertiary education in the disciplines in question.

In an effort to ensure well-prepared, quality presentations, abstracts (300-500 words) are due by December 17, 2007. Participants whose abstracts are accepted by the vetting committee will then be asked to submit their completed papers via email as an attachment in Open Office, Word or Wordperfect by January 18, 2008. (These papers will then be posted on-line for other participants to consult prior to the conference with the intention that time at the Symposium can be devoted much more to discussion than to exposition of the written papers.) We hope that revised papers will continue to be available online: those from the earlier symposia can be accessed from http://www.cavehill.uwi.edu/fhe/histphil/Philosophy/ChiPS/

Contact persons:

Dr Frederick Ochieng'-Odhiambo: fochieng@uwichill.edu.bb

Mr Ed Brandon: edbrandon@gmail.com

Ms Roxanne Burton: roxanneeburton@gmail.com