Is this the Fastest Growing Undergraduate Philosophy Program in the US?

“In Fall 2022, we had four students majoring or minoring in Philosophy; today we have 31.”

[“Heaven on Earth” by Abedinirad Shirin]

That’s Paul Butterfield, assistant professor of philosophy at Alfred University in New York. He adds, “we estimate that, over five years, we will have increased our enrollment tenfold.”

You probably have questions about how they did it. Professor Butterfield was kind enough to share some of their strategies, which we’ll get to.

But he had some requests, which I’ll turn to first. He says, “we’d just like to make contact with other departments who are investing time and effort to increasing their popularity with students, in order to hear about what has and hasn’t worked for them.” You can respond to that in the comments, or reach out to Professor Butterfield directly.

Along those lines, let me remind readers of “Philosophy Departments Under Threat: Information, Pro-Active Strategies, Defense” as well as the occasional series, “Philosophy Department Survival Strategies.”

He is also seeking data that will help frame the department’s achievements, particularly when it comes to interactions with administrators, promoting the department to prospective majors, and approaching possible benefactors. He’d like to be able to compare their department’s growth to philosophy departments at other institutions. So do any of you know of any repository of data that tracks the enrollment of undergraduate philosophy programs across time? I provided him with some leads, but even reports such as this one don’t include that data. If you are aware of anything that can help, please let us know.

Now how did the Philosophy Department at Alfred achieve its growth? Butterfield says: “When I arrived at Alfred in 2022, I made increasing our student numbers my main priority. I credit our achievements to a small number of relatively simple steps, consistently applied.”

Those steps:

1. We have pivoted explicitly to a student-focused approach to course offerings. This means that we’ve made sure our topics are responsive to student interest, but also that we are seen to be sensitive to student input. For this reason, we have openly consulted with students about the kinds of philosophical topics they’d like to discuss. I’ve had conversations with Philosophy majors who have mentioned philosophical questions they have about their own personal interests, and these conversations have been the springboard that caused me to create my ‘Philosophy of Sport’, ‘Feminist Thought’, and ‘Philosophy of Music’ courses. Not every student makes a suggestion that ends up inspiring a course, but seeing actual results from consultation makes all of our students feel that they’re part of a community.
2. Once you have a small number of students enrolled in your program, they begin seeing each other in multiple classes and a sense of community can build from that critical mass. To help this along, we have adopted a regular calendar of events for Philosophy students specifically. I have implemented end-of-semester Philosophy dinners along with the Division of Human Studies’ semesterly student parties at Foster Lake, a local beauty spot owned by the University. This has helped to reinforce the idea that students are surrounded by potential friends, as opposed to merely fellow students who happen to be in the same classrooms as them.
3. Another important goal for me was to maximize the visibility of our faculty on campus. As such, I’ve made sure that I’m a regular fixture at the college’s sports games and theater productions, and my colleague Emrys Westacott and I have hosted a trivia contest at Alfred’s library each semester, which is open to everyone on campus. Emrys retired at the end of last year, and has been replaced by Rachel Silverbloom. Rachel has capitalized on her love for film to start a Philosophy Film Club and is about to take her students on a field trip to our nearest independent cinema.
4. *Our social media campaign has been a more recent development, spearheaded by Rachel. We intend to post light-hearted, Philosophy-themed videos on our YouTube and Instagram accounts on a regular basis. The idea is to be happy to make fun of ourselves, as a direct counter to the reputation for being stuffy or pompous that Philosophy, as a field, sometimes endures. You can see me humiliate myself in a recent video *[the video is below].

As a profession, it may be worth thinking about how to track enrollments across institutions and to recognize and celebrate successes of this type. Ideas about that are welcome, too.