Kirkwood Community College’s Arts & Humanities department is creating a new philosophy course with the guidance of nationally known humanities scholars and mentors.
Kirkwood was one of just 18 colleges across the country picked to participate in the Community College Humanities Association’s “Advancing Humanities: A National Endowment for the Humanities Bridging Cultures Project.”
A grant from the CCHA and the National Endowment for the Humanities is helping send Arts & Humanities Dean Jennifer Bradley and Philosophy faculty members Chris McCord and Mark McCreary to Washington DC for the September event.
“It is a great honor for Kirkwood to be selected when there were so many well-qualified applicants,” said Bradley. “I think it is a real testament to the forward thinking and innovation of our Kirkwood Philosophy faculty. They had a well thought out plan for research and implementation and included the element of the transferable curriculum units and resources so that all Philosophy courses have the potential to benefit from this work.”
The focus of the grant is building cultural and civic understanding. Kirkwood is focusing on it’s new Multicultural Ethics course and identification of teaching resources that are transferable to all of Kirkwood’s Philosophy courses, increasing access to diverse cultures and ways of thinking for students.
The Multicultural Ethics course examines non-Western moral perspectives and theories, such as Confucian, Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic and African ethics. It also focuses on ethical issues such as moral relativism, feminist ethics, homosexuality, immigration and race relations.
“In preparing our students to transfer to a four-year college or university, or to directly enter the workforce, this course will teach them the ethics of various religions and moral issues facing our world today,” added Bradley. “Students who take this course will have a better appreciation for the importance of intercultural understanding in our society.”