For a long time, Duke’s philosophy education was no exception. But there are improvements afoot thanks to a new project led by Andrew Janiak, an associate professor whose expertise lies largely in the history of philosophy. He and a research team of staff and students — along with colleagues at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania — are pushing fundamental, seismic changes to how philosophy is taught.

“Philosophy is a discipline very resistant to change,” Janiak says. “If you looked at a 1970 course catalog at Duke or somewhere else and compared it to a current one you’d see a huge change in areas like English or history. In philosophy, there might be a few differences. But to be frank, it wouldn’t be too different.”

Within philosophy, this seeming gender disparity has prompted a good bit of head scratching.

“I think the majority in the field see this as a real issue,” says Amy Ferrer, executive director of the American Philosophical Association. “At a time when philosophy, the humanities and higher education itself have a lot of challenges, growing the field of philosophy is really important.”