Last year, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, created a Center for Philosophy and Children (see this post). Now the Center has won a $250,000 grant to support its programs. The grant will support the Center for Philosophy and Children’s residential summer philosophy program for high school students. The program includes scholarships for all of the participants that covers tuition, room and board, and transportation. The Center also provides assistance to summer program participants during the school year to help them with the college application process. Besides the summer program, the Center facilitates the Philosophy in Public Schools program, which sends undergraduates, graduate students, and professors into public schools in Western Massachusetts to explore philosophical concepts with children. It also has plans to train school teachers to bring philosophy programs into the classroom. The grant is from the “Knowledge for Freedom” program of the Teagle Foundation. The Center for Philosophy and Children is co-directed by Julia Jorati and Ned Markosian. You can learn more about it here.
outreach
Wisdom’s Edge Foundation is a non-profit organization that aims to bring philosophy-based classes to people who do not have access to traditional university offerings in philosophy. Wisdom’s Edge was created by Sophia Stone, associate professor of philosophy at Lynn University. She writes: In 2022, Wisdom’s Edge Foundation served 121 people by offering free philosophy discussions and activities. Sessions include in-person philosophy events to communities in St. Cloud, Minnesota and Palm Beach County in South Florida as well as on-line sessions to communities from Hawai’i to Florida and India. These sessions included traditional philosophy courses in Applied Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion as well as the History of Philosophy from Eastern and Western traditions. As an outreach organization, Wisdom’s Edge taught free philosophy courses in self-confidence to women in transition from homelessness, incarceration, sex-trafficking and domestic violence. Wisdom’s Edge offered two reading circles online, a mathematics and philosophy circle and a social/political and existentialist philosophy reading circle.