What is the most exciting educational innovation at Williams this spring semester? Easy! Newly tenured professor Joe Cruz is teaching a tutorial on David Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature. What’s different this spring is that two students have volunteered to have their essays posted on the web. We will be linking to them from EphBlog and, perhaps, commenting as well.

Sceptics will claim that no one cares, that no one could possibly be interested in what a couple of undergraduates have to say about Hume. Maybe. These sceptics also doubted that thousands of readers would regularly come to EphBlog, that our virtual Winter Study seminar would attract dozens of participants and that hundres of people would find (portions of) senior theses like Jen Doleac’s ‘03 and Lindsey Taylor’s ‘05 worth reading. Sceptics are always sceptical.

I think that the sceptics are wrong, that there is a huge demand from alumni and others for greater participation in the intellectual life of the college, that current students would enjoy and appreciate alumni involvement, that these demands will increasingly be met via the classroom and that tutorials form a natural starting point. I predict that, in a few years, we will all be able to listen in on one of Joe’s tutorial sessions and even, someday, to watch as well. You read it here first.

Long time readers will recall that EphBlog tried something similar three (!) years ago. Perhaps this attempt will work out better.