{"id":49,"date":"2018-12-20T10:23:08","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T15:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018\/?page_id=49"},"modified":"2019-05-10T00:37:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T04:37:25","slug":"log-11","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/data-collection-logs\/log-11\/","title":{"rendered":"March 27 &#8211; Bowdoin&#8217;s Philosophy (Pt.1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><b><i>What data did you collect?\/What is your initial impression of the data?<\/i><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For this section, I collected data regarding Bowdoin\u2019s philosophy. First and foremost, this includes the Offer of the College, which is as stated below:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">TO BE AT HOME in all lands and all ages;<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To count Nature a familiar acquaintance, and Art an intimate friend;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To gain a standard for the appreciation of others&#8217; work<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the criticism of your own;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To carry the keys of the world&#8217;s library in your pocket,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And feel its resources behind you in whatever task you undertake;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To make hosts of friends&#8230; Who are to be leaders in all walks of life;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To lose yourself in generous enthusiasms<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And cooperate with others for common ends &#8211;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the offer of the college for the best four years of your life.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Though important to how Bowdoin operates because administrators, professors, and the admissions office constantly refers to it, I did not particularly find anything useful from it that I could draw form to support my argument. It is a speech from William DeWitt Hyde that speaks pretty generally on subjects that no majority would disagree is a good education. I have decided not to spend too much time and effort in utilizing the Offer of the College to make my argument, so I will put this on hold.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">However, while on the official Bowdoin page under \u201cThe Offer of the College\u201d, I saw an elaboration of what a liberal education is, which is stated below: <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><b>A liberal arts education cultivates the mind and the imagination<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">; encourages seeking after truth, meaning, and beauty; awakens an appreciation of past traditions and present challenges; fosters joy in learning and sharing that learning with others; supports taking the intellectual risks required to explore the unknown, test new ideas, and enter into constructive debate; and builds the foundation for making principled judgments. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It hones the capacity for critical and open intellectual inquiry\u2014the interest in asking questions, challenging assumptions, seeking answers, and reaching conclusions supported by logic and evidence. <\/span><b>A Bowdoin education rests fundamentally on the free exchange of ideas\u2014on conversation and questioning\u2014that thrives in classrooms, lecture halls, laboratories, studios, dining halls, playing fields, and dormitory rooms.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Ultimately, a liberal arts education promotes independent thinking, individual action, and social responsibility. Graduates should leave Bowdoin with the ability to engage competing views critically, to make principled judgments that inform their practice, and to work effectively with others as informed citizens, committed to constructing a just and sustainable world.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">(<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bowdoin.edu\/about\/the-offer\/index.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/www.bowdoin.edu\/about\/the-offer\/index.html<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">) <\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><i>How have the data you have collected this week changed\/progressed your thinking about your research project?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">David Harvey defines Neoliberalism as \u201cin the first instance a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an<\/span><b> institutional framework <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">characterized by strong private property rights, <\/span><b>free markets, and free trade<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201d (Harvey, 2005).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Bowdoin website\u2019s description is particularly interesting because of rhetoric and certain characterizations of the Bowdoin classroom. For example, the quote really pushes students to share and learn with others and \u201ctake intellectual risks required to explore the unknown, test new ideas, and builds the foundation for making principled judgments\u201d, which to me strongly reflects an entrepreneurial mindset and approach towards education. Secondly, the idea of that \u201cA Bowdoin education rests fundamentally on the free exchange of ideas&#8230;that thrives in classrooms, lecture halls, laboratories, studios, dining halls, playing fields, and dormitory rooms\u201d draws strong parallelism of free market and free trade. In this instance, the Bowdoin space is the free market where ideas are being traded. I personally do not agree with this, as Bowdoin is a predominantly white space where certain students (most of whom are white, wealthy, from New England, have been to prep school) who, for the most part, have more confidence, have the rhetoric, have used practiced using certain language, and understand how a classroom very similar to Bowdoin operates. As such, there is no true \u201cfree exchange of ideas\u201d&#8211; only the idea of such. There is Bowdoin in its actuality versus the ideal type of what it aspires to be, which aligns with neoliberal concepts of free market and free trade. To me, this is reflective of how this definition of a Bowdoin education&#8211;on the official website of the college, runs parallel to ideas of neoliberalism. This is not only in its adaptation of neoliberal concepts of free trade and free market of ideas, but also in the issues of its practice&#8211;that there is no true \u201cfree market\u201d or \u201cfree trade\u201d of ideas at Bowdoin. I see a lot <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This data&#8211;drawing from the school\u2019s official website&#8211; has progressed my research project by confirming my hypothesis: that Bowdoin subscribes to neoliberal concepts. To what degree, that is something I have to continue to look for in the research process. I would also have to look at different examples of Bowdoin philosophies that potentially support neoliberalism, such as the Common Good, descriptions of it through the admissions offices, aolumni, etc. <\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Harvey, David 2005 A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Bowdoin Website: The Offer of the College and A Liberal Arts Education,\u00a0https:\/\/www.bowdoin.edu\/about\/the-offer\/index.html<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What data did you collect?\/What is your initial impression of the data?For this section, I collected data regarding Bowdoin\u2019s philosophy. First and foremost, this includes the Offer of the College, which is as stated below: TO BE AT HOME in all lands and all ages;To count Nature a familiar acquaintance, and Art an intimate friend; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/data-collection-logs\/log-11\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;March 27 &#8211; Bowdoin&#8217;s Philosophy (Pt.1)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":15,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-49","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/49\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-schow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}