Workshop: Philosophy and the ‘employability’ agenda

making the most of the benefits of studying philosophy, and answering the critics


Satellite Session of the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association, Dublin 2010
Monday 12 July 2010, University College, Dublin

Dr Clare Saunders,
Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies, University of Leeds

‘Employability’ is an increasingly significant watchword in higher education – funders, students and their parents alike demand to know how their investment in degree level study will be repaid in terms of graduates’ preparedness for the world of work. This workshop will explore both philosophical and practical responses to such demands – analysing how philosophy may tackle the ‘employability’ agenda in ways which do justice to the unique benefits and qualities of our discipline.

The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies works with philosophy teachers and students across UK higher education, and has published a popular student guide to employability: WHERE NEXT? UNLOCKING THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR PHILOSOPHY DEGREE (2nd edition, 2009). This workshop will draw upon examples from a range of HE philosophy curricula, as well as generic educational research, in order to provide participants with a number of discipline-specific tools for approaching the ‘employability’ agenda in a subject-appropriate way.

For further details or to register for the workshop, please visit:
http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/view.html/prsevents/474.
Registration is not compulsory, but participants who register before Monday 5 July 2010 will receive a free copy of the Subject Centre’s employability materials.

Topics covered will include:

Answering the critics:

  1. Philosophers – why employability is important, and need not require us to abandon philosophical integrity
  2. Non-philosophers – ‘Why study philosophy?’: beyond the ‘usual suspect’ responses, articulating the unique benefits of philosophical study

 

Making the most of the benefits of studying philosophy:

  1. Reviewing practice – articulating what your department is already doing to foster students’ employability
  2. Sharing practices - exploring approaches developed in other departments and how these might be adapted for your own use
  3. Joining up the dots – exploiting the ‘employability’ agenda to promote philosophy to other ‘stakeholders’ (prospective students and parents; university senior managers…)
Subject Centre