Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 548 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, holding class while holding our breath with Betsy Barre.

Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, Maximizing Human Potential.

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at facilitating learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches, so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. I’m thrilled to be welcoming back to the show today, Betsy Barre. After receiving her PhD in 2009, Betsy spent 5 years teaching philosophy and religious studies at Lake Forest College, Marymount, Manhattan College, and Rice University. When Rice launched its center for teaching excellence in 2014, she was appointed a founding assistant director.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:01:15]:

In 2016, she was promoted to associate director, and in 2018, she began her current position at Wake Forest. Trained as a comparative ethicist, Betsy’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and the history of religion. Her disciplinary scholarship, which you’ll hear a little bit about in the episode, compares Catholic and Muslim arguments about the nature of law within diverse societies. And more recently, she’s explored related questions in the philosophy of education. More specifically, she’s been thinking about the nature of professorial authority within the context of politically diverse classrooms, which you’ll also be hearing about on today’s episode. Betsy is the assistant provost and executive director of the center for the advancement of teaching at Wake Forest University. She has continued to teach courses when her schedule allows. Throughout her career, she’s taught introductory ethics and religion courses, specialized seminars on sexual ethics and the first amendment, graduate courses on teaching and learning, and most recently, a course on disagreement and democratic deliberation.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:38]:

She has an affiliate faculty appointment in the department for the study of religions. Betsy Barre, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Betsy Barre [00:02:46]:

Thanks. It’s great to be back.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:48]:

I am so glad that we recently got to see each other in person. And I was telling you, I did a little fangirl. I said, that’s Bessie. She said, in this session, I’ll taking pictures of you like paparazzi without you knowing it, but that’s so much fun.

Betsy Barre [00:02:59]:

Fangirling with you too. Seeing you in person was great too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:02]:

So fun. Well, I have been doing this podcast for more than a decade and have learned so much from people like you. I’m so glad to be welcoming you back. And there’s one thing that hasn’t come up that much that I’m excited to have you shape my thinking and others’ thinking around. But first, allow me to share about a former colleague of mine. I regarded him, and still to this day, even though I haven’t talked to him in years, just regarded him as such a wonderful educator. He’s an anthropologist, and so he would talk pretty regularly about he didn’t ever want his students to know what he thought about things. And I I as I remember back, it was a lot about politics because he and I shared some political beliefs.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:44]:

So we’d have the side conversations, but it was always like, oh, I could never have my students ever, ever, ever know my opinions. In fact, I want them you know, I that was just something he seemed to go bend out bend over backwards to always be perceived by the students where they would never know what he really felt about things. And so all the way from back then, that’s still kind of the hidden curriculum where I feel like I’ve I’ve eradicated so much of the hidden curriculum that I got coming in that wasn’t helpful. Like, don’t trust students. They’re always gonna cheat. You better not you know, you better be on them, but this is a whole area. And you re you recently wrote a piece about it, which I’m so glad that we get to have this conversation about, but I kept thinking, gosh, there’s so many things I’ve changed my mind about, so many ways my thinking and and my approaches have been changed in all all of these years, but that’s one where I haven’t had an opportunity, like, I get to have today and through your writing. But let’s just start out with you telling what what kinds of hidden curriculum were there for you when you started teaching around neutrality.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:04:47]:

Did you also have that as something you aspire to?

Betsy Barre [00:04:50]:

Yes. And we may talk a little bit more about this later if we’re gonna spend the whole session talking about neutrality. We’ll talk a little bit more about my background and how I got into my into the field and my academic training

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:01]:

Mhmm.

Betsy Barre [00:05:01]:

Prior to doing being a teaching center director. But I I have a PhD in religious studies. And so that means I in my early career, I was teaching religion. And as you might imagine, this is a question, the question of neutrality that comes up a lot. You know, I’m sure it comes up in political science as well. My husband’s a political scientist. We actually always joke that we teach the things you’re not supposed to talk about at dinner. And so we’re really great dinner conversation partners.

Betsy Barre [00:05:24]:

So it comes up a lot. And in fact, there’s debate about it in religious studies. So so in some ways, I didn’t have a hidden curriculum, like, for sure. But I actually had the view early on that I was pretty sure that I was absolutely not going to tell my students what my religious views were. And in fact, like, it was it was always like a fun kind of thing. I would tell them on the 1st day, like, because that they would I would let them ask me questions, and they would say, what’s your religion? I said, I’m not gonna tell you. And sometimes I would say, whatever I am, I’m a weird version of that just to really confuse them.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:52]:

Yep. Yep.

Betsy Barre [00:05:53]:

And so it was hard because I was actually trying to police that a lot, particularly with religion, like, even thinking about slips of, like, oh, I’m going home for break.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:01]:

Mhmm.

Betsy Barre [00:06:02]:

You know, things that you could give hints of. And, you know, of course, they’re not idiots. They can sort of, they’re guessing. They’re trying to figure it out. I have a funny story I tell of a of a student at Rice who actually read my dissertation to figure it out, because I actually did talk about it

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:15]:

there. That’s a commitment.

Betsy Barre [00:06:17]:

I know. It was a very much they were that’s the thing is when you tell students they aren’t allowed to know something, they will definitely seek it out.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:23]:

Yeah.

Betsy Barre [00:06:23]:

Yeah. So so for most of my most of my teaching career, I have been pretty committed to playing the devil’s advocate, arguing for all sides of the debate, trying to, you know, not let them know what my views are because it doesn’t matter. What matters are their views. But it’s also a very complex question. And, of course, around the election this year, I wanted to address that complexity, and I’ve had some issues in my own life where I sort of started thinking through it in more complicated ways, I guess I would say. But but I’m very sympathetic with the view that we shouldn’t share our views. And sometimes I do take that view, but other times, maybe not.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:57]:

Yeah. And I think so much of that comes up. You talk about neutrality as it relates to our politics, but this is the not so hidden curriculum that there’s this label that so quickly wants to be placed of indoctrination. Yes. So maybe you could start out also by kinda helping us think through a little bit indoctrination and and because I that would be a word that I would not want to have applied to me, and yet I still I teach a business ethics class in the spring, and and and I it’s one of those things where I actually have it as a learning outcome that they change their mind about something during the class. I love that.

Betsy Barre [00:07:35]:

And I

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:35]:

have to go ahead and

Betsy Barre [00:07:36]:

I love that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:07:37]:

But I have to be I feel very feeble in my attempts because I don’t have the kind of education that you have in training and all that, but it but, I have to explain, like, what why do I think it’s a good thing to change our mind and that I’m changing my mind about things all the time, but also not changing my values every day. But, I mean, AI is such a good example of something that I’m I feel so weird about in recent years just because I’m not someone who vacillates, you know, and my values aren’t changing, but AI and how I feel about it

Betsy Barre [00:08:07]:

Oh, yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:08]:

It is shaping us and how we are shaping it is something that is just a weird thing to be changing my mind that much. But, anyway, so there’s this kind of this feeling of especially, I I you and I work at very different places where where I teach is a religiously affiliated it is not a denomination that I belong to, but it is off if it’s not obvious to those listening, imagine Betsy, I’m also not allowed to oppose it, you know, in real public spaces, that kind of thing, so I have to I have to be cautious. But, also, my caution comes quite naturally because I would want to respect and regard other people’s backgrounds and their and their beliefs. And and so but I definitely would have students for whom either the students themselves or especially their parents, I would feel a real fear, and I would hope on my best of days, Betsy, it would be a fear because I really want to be a great teacher, sometimes it’s a fear that goes beyond just the the hopes of being a good teacher, but just around, oh, being accused of and perhaps actually being someone who could be perceived as indoctrinating. So what comes to mind around that word too?

Betsy Barre [00:09:16]:

Goodness. So much to talk about there. I have all these notes now that I’m like, ah, I could go in 16 different directions.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:09:21]:

I love that.

Betsy Barre [00:09:22]:

So I think, no. It’s good. I have notes. So we’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll go hit them one by if I if we don’t get to it, I’ll come back to it later in the conversation. But I think of I guess before I get to indoctrination, which I do I’m very interested in that question, and I think I said in my blog post, I have a sort of book project bouncing around in my head about indoctrination of neutrality I’ve had for many years. But the but I’ve been on this podcast before. I’ve been on some other podcasts. Any listener who has heard me before, I have this sort of, like, hobby horse, issue when we talk about pedagogy, which is that I think we could be more generous when we talk to people who disagree with us about pedagogy and often and recognize the complexity of the decisions that we’re making.

Betsy Barre [00:09:58]:

And often, I think that’s about humility. And so when you’re talking about getting students to change their mind Mhmm. I think what you really have is you wanna help them develop humility, intellectual humility.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:08]:

Mhmm.

Betsy Barre [00:10:08]:

Right? So and that to me is one of my primary goals in my courses as well. So that’s why I love your having it as a learning outcome that you have to change your mind. And I think just generally as instructors, when we’re thinking about our teaching, the more we can be humble and recognize that we may have strong views about things, but that this is really hard and these issues are really complex, And that I can I’m not saying like, I can still say to you, like, I think you’re wrong in that choice you’ve made.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:32]:

Mhmm.

Betsy Barre [00:10:32]:

But I can still understand it’s a reasonable position. Right? And the reason I think that’s important for what we’re talking about today is that given the past few weeks, the past few years, maybe the past decade, we are, all feeling a lot of strong things. We all have myself included. And the discourse about how we should think about politics in the classroom, which is a really complex question. We’re often sort of just like the rest of our politics, taking firm positions and being very moralistic in judging each other for doing the wrong thing. And particularly over the last few weeks, which is why I asked Bonni to sort of change it up, and let’s talk about this, is that there’s been a lot of really somewhat heated discourse about whether it’s appropriate to share your views in class, whether it’s appropriate to, like, save space in your class to process the election, whether you should be canceling class or that’s a violation of your responsibilities. And so I think one of the motivations for writing that blog post, for writing about this, for talking about this, it’s a complex issue. But the main thing I want to wanted to do is I was thinking about my faculty, and I was thinking they’re feeling what you were feeling, I think, Bonni, is they were anxious because they recognize the complexity of this, and they are not experts on this.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:11:40]:

Mhmm.

Betsy Barre [00:11:40]:

Like, if the experts can’t even agree, people who are political philosophers, philosophers of education, if they’re in the weeds and it’s a really complex issue, you can imagine most of our faculty are very anxious about, I have these views. I have these feelings. I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to hide them, but I also don’t wanna be accused of indoctrination. I wanna be respectful of my students. I don’t know what to do. I’m super anxious. And my thought was, you already have enough to worry about this week. You know, you already it’s already a tough time for all of us.

Betsy Barre [00:12:06]:

We’re already anxious about many other things unrelated to our roles as teachers. I wanted them to be less anxious about their choices in the classroom to basically say there are reasonable arguments for doing a lot of different things. And so it’s okay. Mhmm. And it’s also okay to, like, maybe change your mind, do it, and then say, maybe I should have done that. Maybe I shouldn’t have shared or maybe I should have shared. That these are hard things. And so I love that you’re you’re expressing your anxiety.

Betsy Barre [00:12:30]:

I think a lot of people are feeling anxiety. A lot of people wanna be respectful. They don’t want to be dogmatic, accused of indoctrination. They know that students often have different views in their classroom. That’s true at Wake Forest. Definitely was true at Wake Forest. And you just wanna be humble. And so I think as much as we want our students to be humble, we ourselves wanna be.

Betsy Barre [00:12:47]:

And that’s one thing I often share is that this is an opportunity for us to model for students, a certain approach to knowledge and to our how we hold views and still respect others at the same time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:12:58]:

Yeah. And and I’m thinking, I I love having really conceptual conversations, and and I have Yeah. I have someone that I live with. I won’t mention who it is, but who who also really likes episodes where things are really practical. We we shape we shape each other’s work really well this way. It’s a it’s a considered a compliment that he shapes me in this way. Sure. So let’s think let’s put on our practical hats a little bit.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:13:22]:

You talk a little bit about those options. From a practical standpoint, you were kinda discussing it from a moral standpoint, which to me is, like, what a wonderful freeing thing. But from a practical standpoint, what might it look like to pursue some of these options and and still be doing, quote, unquote, not not acting in unethical ways in a practical sense?

Betsy Barre [00:13:42]:

Yeah. And I love that you actually asked that question that way because what what you’re asking about again is the ethics of teaching. Right? So so not just the ethics of and again, getting back to the conceptual issue. And a lot’s gonna depend on the institution you’re at. So I also appreciate that you shared that our different institutions have different missions, and that’s really important to say. And students are choosing to go to different institutions, and so there are different ethical issues at stake. But I do think it’s important to get into the get into sort of distinctions when so so we could say, okay, I’m going to be neutral. What does that mean? Right? We could talk a lot about what would that look like, and there are lots of different ways of what that would look like.

Betsy Barre [00:14:17]:

And the same thing is true with I’m not going to be. So you could imagine lots of different nuances there that actually matter. So for example, I think what a lot of us do when we what I had done in the past is, like, I’m not giving them any signs of what I believe, right, at all. But then you can imagine the other direction, the far other direction, which we could say is indoctrination, which is that not only am I saying what I believe, I’m actually teaching you that this is the truth and everything else is false. So that there’s a spectrum here. Right? So there’s I have no view. I’m a woman from nowhere. To not only do I have a view, it’s the view I’m teaching as the one correct view, and I will not allow anyone else to question it.

Betsy Barre [00:14:56]:

So that’s part of the dogmatism too of, like, you’re not even allowed to raise a question. It’s the one correct view. Now you might say, nobody does that. Right? But one of the interesting wrinkles is that we kinda do do that in some science classes. Right? So there is this really interesting question of it depends on the kind of knowledge, you know, of what you know, how we think about teaching and do we are we confident in the knowledge? Is it moral knowledge that we only are anxious about? But there are interesting questions that come up in some of our science or, quote, unquote, fact based courses where we say, well, this is the this is my position. It’s the truth, and that’s why you need to know it. I’m disseminating it to you. But then in between there, to get practical.

Betsy Barre [00:15:31]:

So in between there, there’s lots of options. So I think most of us would agree it seems really hard to police the full neutrality of, like, I’m never sharing anything about my background. And it also feels really inauthentic. I mean, I I think that was a hard part for me is I really like to have relationships with my students. And there was this, like, you know I mean, I had a good reason for it, and I think actually when I teach religion well, let me I’ll come back to that. Well, there’s a good reason why I have, I think, for so when I’m teaching religion to be neutral. But in general or not to be neutral, but to not share to not share my view. But in general, it was hard.

Betsy Barre [00:16:03]:

Right? And so then you have you can imagine, well, I share my views in passing, like, you know, before class, after class. You know, I’m I’m going home for Christmas. I’m a Christian or I’m a Muslim. And they know I’m a Muslim, but it’s just like in passing. It’s not actually part of the course. It’s just something so that they know something about me in my background. And so that seems not super concerning. It could be though if you’re you know, you might worry if there are students in your class who worry maybe she’ll favor those students who agree with her.

Betsy Barre [00:16:31]:

So, you know, there’s some reason or it might turn off some students if they know that. It depending it often depends on what your view is and who your students are. As with many things in teaching, everything is contextual. Everything is contextual. It’s very hard to have very hard and fast rules. And actually, just to go back to the point about religion is that, you know, I I I my religious history is very complex. I’ve been a lot of different things at a lot of different times, but now I am not myself religious. And I know that I have a lot of religious students who take religion classes.

Betsy Barre [00:16:59]:

So if I tell them that I am an atheist, they will turn off immediately. Mhmm. They are done, and there’s nothing I can do to bring them back. And so if I were a Christian or of any variety, a Jew, a Muslim, I actually think I probably would have a little bit of a different view of sharing my religious things with my students. Because, yeah, they may not agree with me, but it’s like, okay, you’re in the same ballpark. There is a kind of strong negative reaction to atheism that and so you have to sort of think about that too. What are your views? How will your students react to that? And and that may change where you fall in the spectrum. So you could say it in passing.

Betsy Barre [00:17:31]:

Another thing you could do is you could bring it up and in the relevance of, like, so this is explained something about why we’re doing something in class and say, this is my view. And then say, but it doesn’t but I also wanna hear people who disagree. Right? So I also wanna engage. Like, it’s just one view among many. Other views are also reasonable. And that’s an interesting modeling there, right, of, like, I have a view, and it’s important for me to share that view. But it’s also the case that I want everyone to engage. And this is what I sort of argued in the blog post as a possibility as well.

Betsy Barre [00:18:00]:

And then you can have a view where you you you sort of teach the view, but you allow you have the view and you teach it, but you allow people to critique it. So that’s like an interesting one too of like a like, maybe that’s closer to what we see in our STEM classes that they teach or social science classes. Right? Like, I’m teaching this view. This is a theory or a view that has empirical evidence, and this is this is what we think is probably true, but we welcome critiques of that. And then you have the dogmatic view, which is like, this is the truth and no critiques are allowed. Right? And so there’s that spectrum, and I think it’s useful for us to think about where do we wanna fall on that spectrum and when and why.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:18:34]:

I mentioned about the colleague that he it’s been a very long time since he worked where I work. And since then, I’ve had many conversations where a little piece of it on the podcast will be like, yeah. There’s no such thing as going into a classroom politically neutral. That’s not Right. That like, we’re always carrying all our politics with us. It is not possible to teach with neutrality. Would that be a statement you would agree with?

Betsy Barre [00:18:56]:

Yes. I would. However yes. And I think it’s really important. And this is true when we think about institutional neutrality, which is different from the teacher neutrality, and maybe it’s worth thinking about that distinction from a pragmatic perspective too.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:19:07]:

Let’s talk to that.

Betsy Barre [00:19:08]:

So let me just back up a little bit and say, so any if if if you have any listeners that have heard me or know me before, I often just to simplify things, I often say I’m an ethicist by trade. And then it’s like, they know I have a PhD in religion, and so people are like, wait. Is she just and so typically what most people think is that I’m a religious person doing ethics from my religious perspective. And since I just shared that I’m not religious, you’re probably like, what’s going on? So, I was a philosophy major in undergrad and was particularly interested in because I had been religious, I was particularly interested in how my religious background had shaped my moral intuitions. So even when I stopped believing in a lot of the metaphysics, they were really powerful. So I was very interested in how moral norms are socially constructed. And so you at the time, you couldn’t really do that in philosophy. So I wanted to study comparative ethics and how moral norms are socially constructed, why we disagree about morality, and then what does that mean for how we live together.

Betsy Barre [00:20:01]:

So I went and got a PhD in religion, but essentially what I studied was moral disagreement and then how so moral pluralism. And how do we politically make sense of that? And so so essentially, I was studying, like, church state issues. Like, the questions of should government be neutral about religion? Is it okay should we have establishment or should we not? And how do Muslims and Christians and Catholics think about this issue? How has that changed over time? And so I do think there’s a really good analogy here between when you’re asking about is it possible to be neutral between the way we think about neutrality in with religion. Because I think a lot of us as Americans, like, we kinda get the church separation of church and state. Like, that’s, like, in our it’s, like, in the

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:42]:

Not not enough of us, but but yes.

Betsy Barre [00:20:44]:

Well, I know.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:20:46]:

One could hope.

Betsy Barre [00:20:46]:

But there is, like, a general like, we understand what it’s supposed to be doing even if we it’s messy, and it is very messy. And even the whole I actually would argue, and this is what part of my previous research was about, that even the logic of religious liberty is kind of confused in certain or or separation of church and state is kind of confused in certain ways. But the point is that we sort of get that there’s a value to neutrality. Right? There there’s a reason we wanna be neutrality neutral. And I think that’s so I wanna say, as much as I think we can’t be neutral, there are also good arguments for neutrality. Very, very good arguments for neutrality. It’s trying to do something important. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:21:19]:

And am I also hearing you say that while an individual, that would be an impossible thing to ask, but that we might get closer with institutions like governments?

Betsy Barre [00:21:31]:

So this is why I think the analogy is good too. It’s because okay. So we would we would feel uncomfortable if the government issued an official statement, which maybe they will. I don’t know if the government issued an official statement that said, like, Islam is false. If the government did like this is an official statement of the government, we would be like, this is a problem. But, of course, we have Christians in government. We have Christians who are politician like, who are not just politicians, but legislatures. We have Muslims who are legislatures.

Betsy Barre [00:21:55]:

So we wouldn’t suggest that every legislature is not allowed to have a religious view. That seems silly. Right? So to have a view, you’re allowed to have. Right? And so the same thing in the analogy might work with an institution. Like, maybe an institution shouldn’t be making official statements, but an individual faculty member can have a view. But then there’s this interesting place where, you know, do we wanna judge in their role as a judge? Like, when they’re in their role like, so they may be a Christian. So we can meet Amy Coney Barrett. Right? A Catholic.

Betsy Barre [00:22:25]:

She’s a Catholic, and that’s fine. That’s great. Right? You can be we’re allowed in the United States. Do we want her and I don’t know that she does this incidentally. I’m just using this as an example because it’s come up a lot. Do we want her making decisions about the constitution based on her Catholic faith? And we might say, no. That’s a violation of the kind of neutrality you need to have in your role. And so we could ask the same question about professors.

Betsy Barre [00:22:47]:

So while, of course, it’s fine to have a view and to just share it, there is an interesting question of in my role as a teacher, like when I am teaching, do I then should I be sharing it or not? Should I be making decisions about teaching based on my my political views or not? And that’s tricky. So just as it’s tricky in government, it’s also tricky in in the classroom. So yeah. So it’s not I think it’s a good analogy. It’s not perfect analogy for a couple of reasons, but but that’s you’re right to have heard that. Right? That that this is there’s a difference between the institution and the individual making those choices. But I’m right now. What was the I I that we went far field.

Betsy Barre [00:23:22]:

I wanna make sure I answered all the question there that you had, but maybe you have another one.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:26]:

Oh, no. I’m just I wanna try something on for size, but it’s more about me as as a Okay. Individual educator, not necessarily my institution, but one of the techniques that I feel like I accidentally fell into this, that I never I mean, I just I’m desperately wanting to bring some values into the classroom and question how I mean, so something that shouldn’t be controversial, but is diversity, equity, and inclusion Yep. In a business ethics class. So I’m always and this is more on the practical side too, those of you who are teaching in even more precarious situations than I am. I am not. I am a fully tenured faculty member. I’ve worked at my institution for 20 years.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:06]:

I mean, I’m not I’m not at great risk the way that others might be who are in situations of precarity, but you always wanna tie it back to the learning outcomes of the class. Yep. So that’s a big thing for and, you know, I’ve studied a little bit of the law around various forms of academic freedom, because if you work at an institution like mine, you don’t truly have it, but you you have some slices of it,

Betsy Barre [00:24:28]:

but Within the context of what your institution will allow. Right? Yes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:24:31]:

Yes. And so I have just sort of fumbled my way into when I’m gonna start talking about something like that. I start with something that would be socially acceptable for almost anyone who might be a student there, and that is, and this is I don’t normally talk about stuff like this, but Imago Dei, which is the image of God in everyone, and this carries across, and and Betsy can tell us more than probably me, because this carries across multiple religions. But, you know, so for me, it’ll be like some of the students will not have ever heard that before, and it’s a beautiful thing, and we might read a poem about it, or we might talk about, you know, and and my, I’m literally just trying to lay a foundation, and it is a little manipulative, I will agree, I will I will admit, to to have something to cushion us for when things might get a little bit rocky.

Betsy Barre [00:25:22]:

Right.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:25:22]:

And then it’s kinda like, then I then I’m kinda going to, I really believe that racism actually, I don’t start with racism, but that discrimination exists out there, and there, ergo, discrimination exists in a business context, and I, then get to, I really think that bias is in all of us. Try to have there be a little bit of so I’m I’m kinda like just slowly working my way down. And when I get to the point, whether it’s about climate change, it was another controversial thing that I’ll run into there because but I always can point it back to companies, many companies, many companies have sustainable initiatives. Let’s go look at Apple’s sustainability plan, you know, so I can point it back to the class, the objectives. But when it gets controversial, I will sometimes share what I think, but I also try to point to, look at all these businesses, and, you know, that but today, it feels a little bit messier than maybe it ever has before, particularly because of this backlash to DEI, which is extending, as you are well aware Yep. Businesses now completely eradicating professional associations. Our SHRM is one that comes to mind, the Society For Human Resource Management, changing their stance on diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so now I’m kind of like, every time I think I might have some techniques that might help us enter into those conversations, then then it kinda goes, oh my gosh.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:51]:

Like, well and and but I guess to be to be a intellectually honest person, then

Betsy Barre [00:26:57]:

Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:26:58]:

I can point that out that, gosh, today, companies are deciding to do different things, aren’t they? It’s just Yes. Yes.

Betsy Barre [00:27:05]:

Yes. And, yeah. I think that’s right. I mean, and you’re I mean, part of what you’re doing in it sounds like in business ethics class is sort of helping them think about how do businesses think about ethical statements in general. Like, how you know? And that’s a fascinating thing. Again, it’s a sociology of ethics, which I’m super interested in, and and that is it really principled? We can ask the same thing about our institutions, frankly, our universities. Are they acting when they make ethical statements or if they don’t make ethical statements, but it’s also a kind of statement. Is it based on principle, or is it just based on who’s mad at us? You know? And that’s a fascinating, you know or who’s gonna buy our stuff? Who’s not gonna buy our stuff? That’s a kind of it’s a challenge when you’re talking to students about that and you wanna talk to them about things like particular values and help them think substantively about it.

Betsy Barre [00:27:46]:

But I love that this you reminded me when you brought this up that one thing I wanted to say that I didn’t say is that, again, why I like the analogy between thinking about neutrality in the government or in liberal democracy and also in the classroom is that it’s not only is it, you know, the distinction between institutions and the like, institutions could be neutral and faculty wouldn’t be. But, actually, I think institutions can’t be fully neutral either. Right? Because institutions are making choices all the time. What about what to teach, about who they’re gonna hire, about how like, all the time, they’re making normative decisions that are about their whether it’s about their mission or not, that’s not really neutral. Right? If they’re choosing not to do a DEI, that’s not neutral. If they’re choosing to do DEI a certain way, that’s not neutral. So I think so that’s we’re saying, first of all, that the all the debates about DI, they are I’m glad we’re having I’m actually glad that well, we’re not really having debates. That’s a whole other problem.

Betsy Barre [00:28:37]:

We’re just, like, yelling at each other. But I actually think the question of how do we promote diversity, equity, and inclusion is really important. Also, if you wanna have the debate about whether we should, well, I’d rather talk to you about it than not know that you actually question that. Right? Like, if there are people who actually question that and they aren’t telling me, well, let’s have that conversation because I think I can convince you. Like, right? Maybe maybe I can’t. I don’t know. But at least think it’s it’s not scary to me to have conversations about things. Like, I do think there is this tension.

Betsy Barre [00:29:04]:

Sometimes we think there’s certain kinds of conversations we should say are off limits because even just entertaining them is sort of endorsing them that they’re reasonable. And there I have I think there’s a fair, good, interesting conversation to have about that. But my view is, particularly as an educator, is that I want to hear those views surface so that I can engage, especially if it’s a student, so that I can engage it. And so but it’s even across my colleagues, I wanna convince them. I don’t wanna just force them to do DEI. Yeah. That’s not gonna work. I have to actually convince them.

Betsy Barre [00:29:32]:

And the only way I can convince them is if I know what they truly believe, not that they’re just coming because they feel social pressure to come.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:39]:

And that that ties back to if we can bring another practical element in, how might what you just said reflect on our grading practices?

Betsy Barre [00:29:50]:

Oh, that’s interesting. What do you think what are the connections you’re making there?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:53]:

Well The DI

Betsy Barre [00:29:54]:

or looking

Bonni Stachowiak [00:29:55]:

back, and I’m gonna look up the name of this book. So I love listening to maybe this should be my one of my recommendations for today, but I love listening to this podcast called Hard Fork. It’s a Oh, yeah.

Betsy Barre [00:30:04]:

Me too. I love it. Gosh. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:06]:

Well, the guy, Kevin Roos, his like, when he was an undergrad aged person, maybe slightly older, he actually went to Liberty University and wrote a ethnography about his experience. That is one of my favorite books, just, I don’t know where he’s at.

Betsy Barre [00:30:24]:

I should read it. Oh, I should, yes.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:30:26]:

It’s so good. I felt like he could have absolutely done some, you know, low hanging fruit to, like, just disregard people when he was, you know, sort of in in a situation where they didn’t know who he was or the purpose of him attending that university, and I don’t think he did that. I think his critiques were, but what so one of the critiques that I distinctly remember, all these years later after reading, it was probably 20 years ago or something, it was in a science class Yep. They had on their and I’m I’m not I’m totally cherry picking because he does he’s really nuanced throughout the book, but this was something he definitely comes out against in a science class. They the right answer was that the Earth was created in a literal 7 days. And if you didn’t answer the right answer in a science class so he was critiquing that.

Betsy Barre [00:31:15]:

Yes. Oh, I see. Okay. I see what you’re saying. Yes. Like, so so remember I gave that spectrum of, like, the ways in which you could be neutral or non neutral as an individual faculty member. That was mostly sort of framing this as, like, things you would do in front of the classroom. But, of course, there’s all sorts of teaching things we do that have more power.

Betsy Barre [00:31:30]:

Like, it’s basically a question of power. Right? This is why we’re anxious about it is that we are teachers are in a position of power, and sometimes that can be used for good and authority. But sometimes we we are anxious, just like, you know, folks who developed liberal democracy were anxious about using state power to do 2 possible things. 1 is to coerce people to believe certain things. And so that would be that kind of indoctrination, like I’m gonna coerce you to believe certain things. So sort of limiting their freedom. We’re worried about limiting people’s freedom. And then the second thing is we’re worried about having sort of giving advantages to people to some people and not others.

Betsy Barre [00:32:06]:

Right? And so we’re worried about unfairness. Like, so challenge so equal liberty and equality, right, are sort of foundation of liberal democracy. And both of those things, we’re worried that we might use power to coerce people to believe or to treat those who believe what we believe better or worse than others. And I think grading can do we could argue grading could do both. This is something that students really care about. Whether they should or not is another issue. But students really care about grades. And if we are grading them to have a certain perspective, like, you need to have this perspective, we are.

Betsy Barre [00:32:36]:

And then maybe I wouldn’t use the word coercion. There’s lots of different kinds of influence, and so that’s a complicated philosophical question too. But we are certainly engaged in influence when we are grading students to have a particular view. Right? If you have this view, you’re correct. If you have this view, you’re not. And so we are nudging them toward at least a performance of belief, if not an actual belief. Usually, it’s an interesting question of whether it’s just a performance. And it’s also the case that if a student decides to have the courage to, like, actually express their views and not change them and perform, for me, I am then advantaging the students who have my view rather than those who don’t.

Betsy Barre [00:33:10]:

And so we’re really yeah. Grading grading for sure can be a huge issue here, and and it but it’s complicated though because, of course, that’s the point of education is that we want to teach students things that are true. Right? And we’re trying to help them ascertain the truth. Now in the humanities, it’s easy for us to say everything’s up for debate. I’m not gonna ever I’m gonna grade on how they make their argument, not the actual conclusion. But there are other disciplines where there are things they need to know. And frankly, in the humanities too. Like, if they said Socrates was born in 1900, I’m gonna be like, that’s wrong.

Betsy Barre [00:33:42]:

Right? Like, I actually, there are facts in philosophy as well. And so so is it okay for me to grade on that? You know? And and and there’s a limit to that. And that’s why academic freedom is so complex is that there’s also this it’s not just a complete free for all. There’s also a sense of sort of academic expertise that can limit speech, not just viewpoints, like opinions. It’s also academic expertise. But then how do we decide who’s an expert? All of that gets gets really messy. And so I hope the main message from all of this is, you know, if you’re anxious, there’s a reason you’re anxious as a teacher because this is all really complex and just don’t. I feel like I mostly want to say to you, it’s okay.

Betsy Barre [00:34:16]:

Right? Again, as I said at the beginning is we’re not gonna I mean, now granted, if you just decide you’re gonna walk in and completely indoctrinate your students and not worry about it, the fact that you are worried about it and anxious as an instructor is a good thing thing, because I think it’ll pull you like, even for me, I I swing back and forth sometimes on these issues. And I think remaining just a little bit anxious is good because it it it checks us if we might be going too far on one direction.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:38]:

Yeah. And I’m thinking about there would be a number of episodes I I will link to some of them where you don’t have to if you’ve if you’ve never attempted alternative grading approaches

Betsy Barre [00:34:51]:

Right.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:34:51]:

You could just use an alternative grading approach Yeah. Just on a single assignment, and it could be quite small relatively in terms of whatever points were associated with it or something. And then to couple that with the work that so many have done around transparency in assignments to be able to have that right up front that says, how is this being assessed, and a recognition that the differing views or perspectives are important. And, you know, so the I think, especially if we are going to decide that this is a case where it makes sense for us to share our perspectives, to be very transparent that we have done so, and that this is an opportunity, like, for example, somebody doesn’t have to agree with me that everyone we carry all carry around biases with us. Although, I I would I would Yeah. I I guess maybe I don’t even wanna say that because I say, like, you go to the store and you have a bias toward your brand of, you know Yeah. Of course. Shampoo that you use.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:49]:

So I I maybe I maybe I’m even being a little bit more egalitarian than that.

Betsy Barre [00:35:54]:

But that was hard. It’s hard to figure out what things you’re gonna say. No. This is something that the students and one thing that I sometimes will do to help because as a philosopher, I’m always overthinking this. Yeah. As a teacher. So I feel bad for my colleagues who are, you know, in the classroom thinking about this. But one thing I do to make myself feel better is I’ll sometimes say, within the context of this discipline, this is true.

Betsy Barre [00:36:13]:

And so that way, the student who doesn’t wanna agree, we can still engage, but I’m not trying to say, like, you have to believe it is absolute. Like, within the this is given the standards of evidence in this discipline, this is true. And so, like, you’re gonna if you want to be engaged in discourse in this discipline, you have to take these things as starting points. Now if you wanna you wanna challenge them, like, I mean, you could I mean, not like in philosophy, everything’s up for debate. So philosophy could be like, I don’t even believe that the world exists. It’s all just in our heads. Right? There’s no empirical world. So so you could you could challenge them, but that’s like another conversation in a philosophy.

Betsy Barre [00:36:44]:

Right? That’s the thing you can say. You could say if you wanna challenge the standards of evidence that we use, go over there. But for the purposes of this discipline and so I think that can help us make decisions about, I’m gonna say bias exists. Right? And you have to and that’s gonna be an expectation that you know that in this discipline.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:01]:

That’s really helpful. And it sounds like I’m not flailing as much as I maybe think. I’m flailing sometimes because instead of it being my my lens is is in this particular class, not as much in academic journals types of things, but more in, like, company practices Sure. Yeah. Policies, that kind of a thing, but it’s still I mean, it’s standards of evidence. It would just be Yes. We might go look to a professional organizations. They’re maybe accounting students or something, and they’re gonna look to the professional requirements to become a certified public accountant or something like that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:34]:

And they have their own standards of ethics.

Betsy Barre [00:37:35]:

Yes. That actually helps a lot when you’re using the professional ethics of the different professions. Yeah. I think that’s a good way of doing it too. Like, within if you’re going to be an engineer, these are the things that you’re going to have to think about. And I do love your point about transparency. I think that is huge. One of the things that’s been interesting to me.

Betsy Barre [00:37:50]:

So as you might imagine, the past 2 weeks, philosophers have been having a lot of debate about this issue. And there’s a I think I may have shared, I don’t know if I’ve ever shared with you, Bonni, but there’s a one of the reasons I’m still on Facebook, I I would have gotten off, I think, a bit ago, but is that they have there’s a very, very active Facebook group for philosophers about teaching. Oh, I didn’t know that. Like, 15 to 20 posts a day and, like, extensive engagement. And they’re all really thoughtful because they’re they’re, like, just really, like, wanting to get into the details of the argument. But I one of the things that was interesting in that discussion is just how striking it is that people have and this is not surprising because we you know, we’re not trained in pedagogy, and we usually just do how we were taught, as you pointed out, the hidden curriculum teaching. Is that just how varied people’s views are on what they assume their colleagues are doing? And so I think a lot of people a lot of us have views of what is and is not appropriate in in the classroom and their strong views, but we don’t bother to tell our students because we just assume everybody’s doing that and everybody knows. And so I think, you know, if I share my view and I don’t take the time to talk about that issue and why I’m sharing it and what this doesn’t mean and what it does mean, then they can have all sorts of wild interpretations that we don’t intend.

Betsy Barre [00:38:55]:

And so, you know, and having a rubric is really important. And philosophers also sometimes are really big interesting question, but this blind grading, that’s a fascinating issue because I think a lot of political philosophers are, like, really committed to it because it’s like, again, this point of we’re like, we wanna be neutral, we wanna be fair. But, of course, then there’s a response to that, which is that, like, different students have different needs. And so is it equitable? You You know, it’d be equal, but is it equitable if you don’t actually know who the student is and you’re just, you know so that’s fascinating, you know, whether we should do blind grading. But I do think a lot of our the reason our debates about grading are so heated too is because they’re also issues of justice. Right? They’re they’re issues of fairness Yeah. That we care a lot about.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:33]:

I’m so glad that you mentioned that. I’m so appreciating the nuance that you’re bringing to this conversation because what you’re reminding me of my colleague, Jim, who always says the phrase, don’t hear what I’m not saying. So I think what I just heard you not say is that you have to have a grading rate rubric for every single assignment, but that some assignments, one technique you could use to help a little bit with some of these these potential issues of neutrality could be a grading rubric. It helps with transparency of expectations, helps you keep you in check. For me, it helps me avoid the halo effect, and or the opposite of that, which would be that I my friend just taught me this the other day, the horns effect, where, you know, the Oh, yeah. Perhaps spelling was off or something, and and then that affects all the other things that are contained in the rubric. You mentioned blind grading. A lot of our learning management systems not only will allow us to use blind grading just on an assignment by assignment basis.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:40:29]:

So maybe you don’t wanna have that for the entire class, but perhaps there’s an assignment that might benefit from it. And I also just wanted to mention that some of our learning management systems will allow us just to grade 1 question all the way through, and then another question, because I have heard over time that that bias can step in there. And even if it’s just, I I was grading part of the exams before lunch, and I was super hungry and grumpy and didn’t realize it, and, you know, after lunch, all of a sudden, when I was real full after lunch, you know, the grades just shot up or something or the or the opposite of that. So that’s really, really, so many practical, practical things here. Yeah. Oh, so good. Alright. So this is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:11]:

I have 2, and I’ll be quick because I know we’ve got tough time to

Betsy Barre [00:41:14]:

do this. I’ll be quick too. Yep.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:15]:

So first one is, speaking of political spaces and online social media, many people have decided to leave x and go other places. Mhmm. And I’ve talked about it a little bit on the podcast recently. Lots of thoughts about whether the Fediverse, which is kind of you could take your accounts with you to different places Right.

Betsy Barre [00:41:36]:

Right. Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:41:36]:

Versus the ease of use and ever increasing by the day use of Blue Sky. So if you’re interested in Blue Sky as a social network, I, along with many others, are finding it reminiscent to a community that we used to have on the site formerly known as Twitter. So I have a article I’ll send to you if you wanna take a look how to get started with academic blue sky. It’s blue sky, but as an academic, how could you engage in that social network, set up an account, how how do you post things, how do you kinda get it curated so that it’ll feed you things that will be nourishing for you. The second article I wanted to share is from a substack that I only just recently started reading, so I don’t know a lot about it, but it’s called Hal and Pals, the rhetoric of AI in media and culture. The writer’s name is Lily Chambers, who describes herself as an AI enthusiast and skeptic, writer, reader, and she says, I make bots talk for a living. And the article I wanna link to here is called how to be private, easy steps to increase personal data security. And in all of my reading about AI and all the podcasts I listen to and all the things, I’m not hearing as much about one’s own personal data security.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:42:53]:

And so if that’s of interest to you, perhaps even if it’s not of interest to you, worth a read to go look at how might you engage with AI, but to do so with a lens of wanting to protect your personal data.

Betsy Barre [00:43:05]:

Yeah. That’s great. So I’m gonna pick a few here, and I may share more with Bonni later that she could put on the website. But the but, the first one I’m gonna talk about, which is getting quite popular now, so a lot of your listeners may have heard about this because there was a This American Life episode about it, but the Tangle newsletter. So this is a, journalist who is trying to present daily newsletter or not daily. It’s like a week. But this is what the right is saying. This is what the left is saying.

Betsy Barre [00:43:30]:

Here’s my take to avoid filter bubbles. And sometimes it pisses me off, but then it’s what I love about it is that even when it pisses you off, it’s like he says, don’t unsubscribe. Write in with why it pisses you off, and I’ll subscribe. Or I’ll I’ll respond in the next in the next issue. It’s a nice model for okay. We’re allowed to be pissed, and let’s talk about it. Right? Let’s instead of just shutting down and moving away, let’s actually talk through it. So I like that.

Betsy Barre [00:43:52]:

It’s just a nice and I’m I’ve only been following it for about a month or 2, so let’s see if I still continue. But so far, I’ve liked it. But then in terms of these issues, there’s a really great podcast. A couple there’s an article and a book that’s a little bit probably too I I might share those, but there’s a podcast called teaching indoctrination or the episode title is teaching indoctrination and trust, and it’s on the ethics and education podcast. And it’s a wonderful reflection on some of the issues we’ve been talking about with respect to trust and sort of in particularly conservative students and how do we think about how we engage with students’ questions of indoctrination. Really, really fabulous. A couple of philosophers who have really insightful things to say about that, and I’ve shared it with a lot of people and people love it. One of my favorite and then this the final thing I’ll share is a very short piece.

Betsy Barre [00:44:33]:

I have books too, but I’ll put those in the links. But one of my is a very short essay. It’s one of my favorite pieces of public political philosophy, so written for a popular audience. But it was written in 2018, and it’s about the sort of political moment we find ourselves in, the polarization that we find ourselves in, and how we should engage or shouldn’t engage in different views about that, whether we should engage with each other. And I love the title because the title is this episode of Black Mirror Sucks. That we’re, like, in a moment that’s like, this is the bad timeline. And then the subtitle is, on civil discourse and political faith. And I went back and reread that recently the past 2 weeks, and it’s a reminder of what we’re, why we should still keep hope and why we should still keep trying this even when we’re feeling maybe a little some of us, not all of us.

Betsy Barre [00:45:20]:

Some of us are feeling not so great, and it’s also a really good reminder of why we although it will be tempting to just turn to power and saying, I just want to defeat them with power, that it’s a reminder. And, again, for all educators, I hope all of us are on board with, we want to communicate with them and con and convince them through dialogue and deliberation, and it’s a beautiful piece on that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:45:43]:

Oh, sounds so good. I’m so grateful for this conversation. And I know originally you were coming on to talk about AI, so all this is is just an excuse to not have so much time go by till I get get you back again. I’m so glad.

Betsy Barre [00:45:54]:

Yes. I can come back and talk about it. And I do think AI is related to this too, but, yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry. I I sort of hijacked this for your listeners to know that I’m so glad. We both talk about AI, but then after the election, I was like, no. No.

Betsy Barre [00:46:03]:

No. I wanna talk about that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:46:04]:

I’m so glad. I’m grateful for today, and I’m grateful for the next time.

Betsy Barre [00:46:08]:

That sounds good. Thanks so much, Bonni.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:46:12]:

Thanks once again to Betsy Barre for joining me for today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you’ve yet to sign up for the weekly updates, head over to teaching in higher ed.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes show notes as well as some other resources that don’t show up on those notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time.

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.