How to Recruit and Retain Majors

Here are comments from survey respondents describing how, if at all, they have dealt with the issue of recruiting and retaining majors.

• Making teaching effectiveness and ability to relate to students a high priority in hiring philosophy faculty. Informal gatherings with students at my home at least twice a semester.
• None: I really advertise the value of a minor. I encourage those who major to double major. I also advertise the major and minor as a good way to prepare for the LSAT and law school or graduate school in Political Science/Philosophy.
• We have a local chapter of the Phi Sigma Tau philosophy honor society. This group of students plans events for all our philosophy majors, minors, and other students interested in philosophy. These events include film discussions, discussions of philosophical papers and topics, meetings with student philosophy clubs at other colleges and universities in the area, and social events.
• Regular online missives about philosophy in the news.
• Offering a greater variety of lower division courses in order to to provide better opportunity for non-majors to take more than one philosophy course, which will hopefully lead some to continue taking philosophy
• Often we make the argument to students in other majors that philosophy would be a helpful second major for them, particularly if they are interested in pursuing graduate education in areas such as law, theology, or literature. We also have had some success convincing philosophy minors to "trade up" to the major (added to their other major). Our college has offered us significant scholarship funds to help attract incoming first-year students who declare a philosophy major, but we have found it difficult to give this money away, since most students coming to our college have no experience with philosophy before they arrive here. We have just offered our first such scholarship, to someone who knows about us because his older brother is already a philosophy major here.
• Philosophy club.
• We put a lot of effort into our 100-level courses and these seem to be successful in recruiting students. We usually have approx. ten majors per year, so in late spring we might have almost 30 majors declared. We are in the enviable position, therefore, of not having to recruit aggressively (and absorb marginal students into the major).
• Recruitment: forging links with local high-density 6th form colleges Retention: creating and maintaining philosophy community; extracurricular events (trips, quizzes etc)
• Good courses, close personal contact, and ambitious expectations.
• We have emphasized our offering seminar courses in which student presentations and participation offer an opportunity for direct engagement with professors that is often impossible in larger programs, and we emphasize personal, face-to-face advising of students who we come to know reasonably well as individuals through the course of their study with us.
• Most of the recruiting happens "organically" via exposure to philosophy in our introductory courses. We've made a concerted effort to take advantage of all opportunities to advertise our program (i.e., attending major fests and advising meetings).
• Suggesting double majoring; stressing the applicability of the skill set to law school, etc..
• I'm in a rather unique situation for a small department. My college operates in a consortium (with about 2 dozen philosophers total). So, students who wish to major in philosophy have many options off-campus. I often advise students who never take a course from me (because their interests are elsewhere). Similarly, I get to work with philosophy students from the other campuses.
• I always personally ask students who seem to have an interest in philosophy and/or who do well in the class if they have ever considered becoming a philosophy major/minor.
• Opening our intro classes to more students, raising the maximum number in those classes, and putting our best, most charismatic teachers in those general/open intros, has increased recruitment. Retention is pretty easy once we've got them in the door.
• We have formed a student philosophy club. This, we hope, will increase a sense of community amongst our majors and minors which in turn hopefully will help recruit and, in particular, retain majors. For recruiting purposes we identify students in our (required) intro class who seem (a) to have an aptitude for philosophy and (b) an interest in philosophical discussions. We then send out a personal (either a letter or through a conversation) invitation/suggestion that the student consider future philosophy courses. We also now offer a number of courses that satisfy various Core requirements (gen ed courses required of all students). Students can now satisfy 1/2 the requirements for the minor by just taking our various Core/Gen Ed offerings. This has had some positive impact on the number of minors.
• Changing the major to be more flexible. Introducing more applied philosophy courses. Cross-listing more courses. Creating courses in the pre-law track. Working to make more Philosophy courses count as part of General Education.
• I think that the creation of a philosophy club providing opportunities for travel, art, and music has helped keep student interest, both because they have fun, but also because these sorts of activities have helped students encounter philosophy as an entrance to the wider world of ideas and culture. Helping students understand the practical benefits of the major has of course helped, as has some flexibility in faculty teaching schedules, given the fact that most of our majors think of philosophy as their second major. Thus we teach lots of independent studies, for instance.
• We have introduced a wide variety of applied philosophy courses that can appeal to students from different fields. On "course introduction day", we then present the course alongside with the students' main courses.
• philosophy awards given to top students letters sent to the top 5% of students in introductory classes personal appointments for papers
• Present Philosophy as it is (or as I see it).
• We do not have an effective way of dealing with this problem. Again and again, we find ourselves having to replace younger faculty who come here for a few years, find the teaching load intolerable, and leave to find employment elsewhere. The drain on our time and energy caused by repeatedly having to launch a national search is extremely taxing. But I see no end in sight.
• By creating a good sense of community with out-of-class activities. (takes a lot of time)
• We do not have a pre-requisite for 200 level courses, which are often more interesting to students than intro courses.
• Chiefly, we do this through our service courses. Most of our courses are considered intro-level courses, and most of these satisfy some portion of our gen ed curriculum. We try to teach them in such a way that students will find philosophy attractive. Most of our majors are double-majors with some other discipline.
• My college has a philosophy/religious studies requirement, so a great many students are exposed to philosophy and may "catch the bug". This helps a lot. Some take philosophy late in their program, though, too late to major even if they become very interested. I would like to develop a better sales pitch about the value of reasoning, writing, and other thinking skills developed in philosophy. We try to have regular informal gatherings of majors and minors. This is difficult because we have no natural meeting place or lounge space. In each service or mixed course I give an introduction to what philosophy is, in general, and connect this with some of the central goals of the liberal arts.
• Being responsive to their interests, especially by offering independent studies when our limited course offerings don't meet their needs
• The crucial strategy is to make philosophy classes deeply exciting. About once a semester I also give lectures on matters of what might be called "public philosophy" in the university lecture series, which gives the philosophy program a bit more visibility.
• Offering interesting and compelling courses. Outreach to underrepresented groups of students.
• Integrated into general education philosophy courses an explanation of how philosophy degrees are useful, and a fuller explanation of what we do. Have been searching out those who are interested in philosophy but do not major because they are looking for a pre-professional degree. Have also been working a lot on building up the existing majors so that they can get jobs/grad school/law school admissions post-degree.
• We're developing a brochure, the purpose of which is to draw students into the major -- it will contain things like mini-portraits of some current majors, a 'Top Ten' list of reasons to major in Philosophy, etc.
• We have a Philosophy Club, and those activities promote a sense of belonging among our small cadre of majors and minors. Fortunately, several philosophy classes are options for fulfilling liberal arts requirements, so we can recruit some majors and minors through those classes. I am a visiting assistant professor, and I am speaking only from one year of experience.
• We have a majors fair every year, and an open house, as well as philosophy forums every semester. We also have a very active philosophy discussion society, and "luncheon lectures" that attract students with good food and interesting philosophical topics. We are very active in recruiting, and we have increased our majors by 25% in the last 2 years.
• I have created several campus-wide interdisciplinary events and invited other faculty from outside departments to present their discipline-specific takes on various philosophical ideas. This has raised awareness of Philosophy across campus and the events have been extremely popular and well attended (any one event garners 30-70 people, with usually a dozen of those being faculty).
• Active club and good instruction.
• We aim for excellence in teaching that makes clear how the ideas apply to students' lives and the students seem to respond. If students really find classes to be valuable, they seem to keep coming back. We also limited the major to 24 credits (8 semester classes) and the minor to 15 credits (5 classes). Because a lot of our classes also double as general eds, we get a lot of double majors who find they're halfway to a major just from taking gen-eds.
• Offering interesting topics courses that appeal to an array of students e.g., "Philosophy and Film"
• Suggest to able students that they do the philosophy major. Tell them it's a useful preparation for many careers.
• Our administration refuses to even consider a major (what job will they get with philosophy, our student body is not interested, etc.), so any attempts to recruit minors is seem as a worthless activity by the administration and we get no support for this.
• There are a few ways we have handled this: (1) making sure that full-time faculty teach intro level courses, since getting students excited by good and dedicated teachers at this stage is a big draw into the major; (2) maintaining a vigorous undergraduate philosophy club and drumming up interest through targeted list-procs as well as general announcements in all of our courses; (3) maintaining a lively philosophy colloquium series at least twice per semester that connects students to the larger philosophical community; (4) holding "majors only" events such as pizza parties, quiz shows, and feedback sessions; and (5) having at least one philosophy faculty member at all recruiting events (such as course fairs, open house, etc.).
• Philosophy club seems to have helped. Being involved in the advising of incoming students has helped. Maybe putting information on our department web page has helped. Drawing student attention to being a pre-law philosophy major. Roughly half our majors now plan on applying to law school.
• Listen to them - and answer their questions as good as we can.
• Very few students enter this institution with the intention of studying philosophy (nor does general college recruiting solicit such interest); the few who do enter for the sake of philosophical study are (nearly all) transfer students. My teaching outside the department is exclusively directed to courses that have potential to suggest philosophical studies to at least some of those enrolled. I, and the department's other members, do a good deal of intramural lecturing, again with the intention of introducing auditors to the idea of philosophical study--major or elective. We invest a good deal of time in an active philosophy club (which publishes an in-house journal; leading members serve as informal recruiters to the department; the club has a reputation for intellectually interesting activities of a somewhat "bohemian" cast).
• I am constantly pleading with Secretary Education to allow courses, the upper management in the country is focused on IT education and MBA courses.
• Teaching limited enrollment honors seminars in philosophy has attracted honors students to major or minor in philosophy. We have a small but strong program. Of 12 majors about 8 are also in the honors programs. We also push philosophy as a double major, rather than as a single major. 10 of the 12 majors are also majoring in something else.
• We have a Weekly Roundtable discussion series on various topics. This sometimes draws attention to the major. We also have a mini-conference once a year for students in philosophy and political science.
• I encourage students to add philosophy as a second major. (Our philosophy major is designed to be relatively easy to pick up as a second major, but it is a struggle to get students to think of it as a real option.)
• You happen to have asked this in the year in which we made monumental efforts on this front. I think that what you are doing is important, so this will be long. Sorry. 1. We took a logician/decision theorist's eye to the GE core, and noticed a number of things that worked against us, and some for us. Few things were "for" us. But of those is the opportunity to teach very general courses in the Humanities. The two of us run them as mini philosophy courses, and have had great success. We intentionally devote half of our teaching responsibilities to these courses. That may change as we increase enrollment. Several things were against us. One way the way that credit hours were counted, making such that some of the most likely philosophy majors (History and Pre-Law) COULD NOT POSSIBLY become philosophy majors. We made an argument, documented it extensively, and had the rule changed for Philosophy majors (a long, perilous, woeful road, that was). That rule went into effect a week before registration this past spring, and in that week we doubled the size of the department. We expect that this will continue. The other significant problem we faced was that the students who came to love philosophy tended not to do so until their sophomore or junior years. Our curriculum and course offerings made it impossible for such students to declare a major and complete the B.A. in a timely fashion. We therefore scrapped the entire course offerings, and created a new one that could plausibly be done in those cases in which the student only had two years left of college. We are still thinking on this, though. It sure would be nice to make sure that our students tool both LOGIC and INTRO first. We have not found a way to ensure that. 2. We put out a now-popular "hip" newsletter that is mostly wit, but also some wisdom. 3. We have become good friends with the development department (read "grants and donors"). They have led us to make contacts in our community with a variety of high-caliber business people who happen to be former philosophy majors. This process has only begun, so I cannot speak to its effectiveness. Beginning this fall, we will be having them as invited guests to the philosophy club to talk about what they did with their philosophy major. These are CEO's, foundation presidents, local and national politicians, lawyers and judges, and so on. Nota Bene: people LOVE to come to colleges and talk. Invite them. 4. We have students over to our house for cookouts. It's a blast. It doesn't feel like work. 5. We become involved in on-campus activities.
• Happily, this isn't much of an issue at our college... we tend to get a pretty steady stream.
• 1. Offering unique entry-level classes that substitute for a survey course, like Introduction to Philosophy. These classes are often issue-based (e.g. free-will, existence of God, etc.) 2. Developing extracurricular activities (discussion groups, banquets, etc.)
• We haven't had any problems in this area.
• Well, I am quite new to academia. I am currently trying to revise the major and minor to make it more representative of the field of philosophy, and to make it more interesting for students. Also, I have attempted to recruit students from my own courses. Truth be told, I don't think that a department with only two philosophers should offer a major. Our goal should be to procure more lines so that we can offer a diversity of courses and characters.
• Access to first-year students in an interesting class is essential. Public events-- speakers, discussion groups, etc. Stressed GRE, MCAT, LSAT success for philosophy majors. Started to develop "meaningful" courses, that is, courses which explicitly discuss the meaning of life or what make certain activities worthwhile, on the assumption that good candidates for majors are those students who want more than money or a job, though they want those too.
• We do go out and address students at various schools about the value of the discipline, its relevance to other disciplines and the like. We do always succeed in getting a good intake every academic year.