Wye Seminars at the Aspen Institute
Wye Faculty Seminar: Citizenship in the Polity
July 21-27, 2007
The Wye Faculty Seminar --
cosponsored by The Aspen Institute and AAC&U --assists professors from colleges and universities in relating their teaching to broad issues of citizenship and the American civil polity. The Seminar addresses what we believe to be the central need of a liberal arts institution’s faculty: to exchange ideas with colleagues from other colleges ad other disciplines while probing ideas and values that underlie their teaching. Readings are selected to challenge participants to focus on values such as individual rights, responsibilities, and the public purposes of education in a free, democratic republic. Each year an interdisciplinary cross-section of thoughtful faculty enjoy stimulating discussions in formal seminars with time to read, reflect, exercise, and socialize on the beautiful Wye River campus. Faculty members from all disciplines are welcome.
Download a registration form (PDF) for the July 2007 Wye Faculty Seminar.
Method and Readings
Modeled in the tradition of The Aspen Institute Executive Seminars, each Wye Faculty Seminar combines three essential ingredients:
- first, to gather a diverse group of thoughtful men and women in intellectually rigorous roundtable discussions--truly around the table to converse with rather than confront one another,
- second, to explore great literature stretching from ancient to contemporary time, not merely for artistry of language but for the power of ideas on fundamental issues in our society,
- and third, to translate ideas into action suitable to the challenge of our age.
Based on readings selected from original sources--from Puritan John Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity" to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "A Letter from the Birmingham City Jail"--discussions center around the relationship between the liberal arts education and the responsibilities of citizenship in American democratic society.
The reading list for the 2007 Wye Faculty Seminar is available now.
Each morning, the Seminar's moderator opens the session with a provocative question about the readings, challenging participants to grapple with issues that focus on individual rights and responsibilities, and the public purpose of education. The readings provide a curriculum that holds the Seminar to a stern but stimulating regimen while the environment of the beautiful Queenstown, Maryland campus encourages quiet reflection.
History
Founded by Douglass Cater, then president of Washington College, and Josiah Bunting III, then president of Hampden-Sydney College, the Wye Faculty Seminar began as a pilot program in August 1983, when five small liberal arts colleges--Washington, Hampden-Sydney, Hood, Sweet Briar and Spelman--sent twenty professors to participate in an experimental, round-table discussion of "Citizenship and the American Polity."
Upon the retirement of Douglass Cater from Washington College and Josiah Bunting's assumption as headmaster at the Lawrenceville School, the Association of American Colleges and Universities and The Aspen Institute agreed to co-sponsor the Wye Faculty Seminar in 1991. This established partnership ensures that the Wye Faculty Seminar will remain unmatched in its power to provide professors teaching in the nation's liberal arts colleges and universities the opportunity to come together for a week of intellectual dialogue.
Wye Fellows
Each spring, presidents and deans are invited to nominate members of their faculty to become Wye Fellows. These nominations are used to select the participating institutions of higher learning, based on date of application, geographic location, and a statement describing how participation will help the institution. The selection of fellows is left to the discretion of each institution.
We encourage participation by professors representing a wide variety of disciplines. In past seminars, specialties have ranged from the classics, languages, history, drama, and philosophy, to economics, political science, biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
Costs
Each college or university is required to provide travel costs and a participation fee of $2,750 for each Fellow. The fee includes tuition, lodging, meals, social events, and the seminar readings that are sent to participants well in advance of the seminar.
The 2007 Wye Faculty Seminar will be held July 21-27. Each seminar begins with an opening reception and dinner on the evening of the first day and closes with lunch on the final day.
Participants have the option of bringing a guest on a double occupancy basis for a small additional fee. This fee includes room, board, social events, and a copy of the readings. Guests are welcome to audit the seminar, but do not participate at the roundtable discussions. Participants and guests will enjoy the natural beauty of the Wye Woods settings and its many recreational facilities.
|
