Selection of Student Comments

“Excellent professor, would definitely take another class taught by him, great learning environment and made hard concepts easy to understand.”

“You can tell he really is interested in his material, and understands that this is a required course, doesn't assign too much homework besides the readings – appreciated! He tries hard to keep us engaged.”

“He is knowledgeable and makes it a comfortable environment for sharing ideas and asking questions”

“One of my favorite professors thus far.”

“Dr. Hubbard seems very interested in the subject and does a good job at breaking down the material so we can understand it.”

“Makes it easy to learn for an 830 class.”

“Very good at discussing material, notes.”

“I think Professor Hubbard was a good professor because he had to deal with a class that didn't participate much and hehandled it well. He was very clear and thorough in explaining material.”

“He follows the syllabus and if he changes anything he lets us know.”

“The instructor was faced with a challenge when I came into the class with already low expectations. To my surprise, his excellent teaching got me highly interested in philosophy. He rocks.”

“Great professor of philosophy, funny, out going. Explains material in a fun and clear way! I would take another class if I had the chance.”

“Instructor was very hands on.”

“I enjoyed the juxtaposition of a theory with the applied ethics examples.”
“He knows the material very well.”

“Some of the theories are boring and hard to understand, however Ryan makes it work when we discuss in class.”

“I like the use of real world examples and applying the theories to real life situations. Makes them easier to remember and differentiate.”

“Instructor's discussion and lectures helped me a lot.”

“The professor made me want to learn about philosophy and made classes interesting.”

“Best teacher!”

“Hubbard is great at simplifying texts!”

“His willingness to take a student's idea and work with it was very helpful. It let us look at it from our own viewpoints.”

“I started to look at the world and some issues very differently.”

“Ryan is a great professor. He would make sure that everyone understood lecture clearly. He was always well prepared for class.”

Evaluations

Student Comments – for all Spring 2015 and 2014 courses (4 courses)

(Complete and Unedited)

What aspects of this course were most valuable to your overall learning experience?

–The fact that Ryan spoke clearly and informatively. Instructor seemed intrigued by what he was

teaching.

–I thought the class discussions were good and brought up things I wouldn’t have considered

-Learning the commonly known philosophers

-Learning the material

-The “summarizations” of the readings were most valuable – they clarified a lot of questions

-The course forced students to actually do the assigned readings, which really helped contribute to my

participation in class

-the subject material – everyone should be exposed to this course

-Class size because the student would have more opportunities to give personal opinions as well as

reacting to other people’s opinions on the content. The student does not therefore feel invaded by the

huge space in the room and feel more comfortable giving one’s comment since it is sure that the

comment would be heard and possibly further commented. Papers The papers generally increased my

understanding of the material, I think that even more papers would have been super. Philosophy

courses can be very abstract requiring a great focus that could possibly be developed and matured by

summarizing each reading in one paragraph for example.

-Everything could be applied to real life thinking and situations.

-He was very friendly and engaging

-I found this course to be challenging, and that material was not spoon fed.

-i was gained exposure to political philosophy.

Learning to really think critically and apply the philosophies to life

-Ryan’s method of teaching was most valuable to my learning, he conducts and inclusive discussion

with effective leading questions to get productive responses out of students.

-Some of the discussions about philosophical aspects of this course can be really interesting and can be

applied to current problems.

-various topics covered throughout…especially applied topics.

-The final paper

-The readings/book, chose for the class

-The lecture explaining the material

-Learning new theories of morality and getting a different perspective

-The text act

-The concepts in general, the topics were interesting and intricate, therefore requiring effort to do well

-The lectures

-Lecture

-The pace of the lecture. There was a perfect amount of time to digest the information.

-Group discussions, paper thesis workshop

-focus on discussions not lectures

-opens my eyes to philosophy

-different styles of moral theory

-The lectures were thorough

-Discussions in class and readings

-The readings

-I’m taking this to fulfill a core requirement so learning this in general was valuable

-I started to look at the world and some issues very differently

-It improves my reading skills and critical thinking

-The material covered, the books

-The understanding and point of view I was able to achieve in relationship to philosophy

-Whenever the class participated, I got the most out of the lecture

Additional Comments.

-Great professor, very understanding. Class is relatively easy if one applies the correct amount of effort

into the readings.

-Hubbard is great at simplifying texts!

-His willingness to take a students idea and work with it was very helpful. It let us look at it from our

own viewpoints.

-Overall better understanding of the subject

-Ryan is a great professor. He would make sure that everyone understood lecture clearly. He was

always well prepared for the class.

-Find ways to engage students a bit more.

–Ryan was great and I would love to have him again.

What aspects of this course were least valuable to your overall learning experience

–Class time. It went very slow and seemed to drag on. The class wasn’t very engaging and I only learnt

a lot from outside work and essay writing – and from the teacher’s notes – his notes are very good.

-I thought the second essay was extremely challenging and I dknow that most students didnt fully

understand its directions. This paper was perhaps the least valuable learning exercise of the class.

-none

-nothing was least valuable

-The lectures were, at times, boring and hard to follow. Also, not having paper due dates well in

advance (not listed on the syllabus) was extremely unhelpful.

-A part of the readings’ understanding testing was centered on a quiz/week; I found it okay, yet I would

have apprecieate to discuss the quiz right after. It was one question; and discuss it right after in details

instead of other times would have been better, for me, to absorb the content.

-Certain philosophers that were irrelevant and irrational

-n/a

-none

-none, the course follows a consistent method, which teaches students throughout the semester.

-none

The classes were mainly trying to explain the main points of a reading but the content or philosophical

effect of said reading was many times ignored.

-The pace was just a little slow, I think we could have covered a bit more although it seemed other

students may disagree

-All of it

-This quizzes on reading

-the movie we watched in class

-Some readings were not as good as the majority, but the same applies to everything. Some are good

others are not.

-The essays. I did not know enough about the topics to feel confident in my points.

-Peer review for final paper

-N/A

-pop quizzes

-N/A

-That it was at 9:30 AM

-None

-None

-Students were less engaged

-N/A

-Some of the readings were a little difficult to understand

-N/A

-The movie was the least valuable

-Most of our class work was reading.

Which course readings did you find most helpful? Why were they helpful?

–All of them were interesting, they were different views on different topics

-I found the Wolff book to be very straight forward and easy to read. It simply explained many

complicated theorists and was very helpful in my overall learning in the course.

-Lock and Hobbes.

-Henri Shue is an author I do not recall encountering so far in school. His text was instructive; the

points made were constructive and helped me understand better my last semester law class where

torture was evoked. Justifying the state part because it allows the student to realize what is in place had

to be worked out and applied based on distinct world conceptions.

-Mill

-Most of the articles because the stem from real world ideas and issues.

-None were really helpful, but I did find them interesting, especially when we had to opportunity to

discuss them in class.

-readings from text and written text from philosophers.

-The book in general was helpful

-Wolf’s section on Mill’s liberty principle contained helpful explanations.

-I found most helpful, except I was not very interested in metaethics

-The blue book was more interesting

-Kantian – most helpful – clear, easy to understand

-Most of the readings were helpful and were related to each other in some way.

-Both major texts were helpful

-varied – less dense material helped me absorb.

-The Fundamentals of Ethics book – it’s language was solid while still teaching philosophical theories.

-The textbooks with all the readings and definitions were a great study guide

-The Ethical Life = interesting read

-Most of them applied to what we learned

-They were all great

-Licensing Parents of Hugh LaFollette, nice points

-All readings were equally helpful for the purpose of this course.

-Hobbes was the most helpful

-Readings all got you thinking a lot. I enjoyed most if not all of them.

Which course readings did you find least helpful? Why were they not helpful?

-None

-I thought that Nozick readings were quite challenging and required the instructor’s thorough

explanation the next class. Because of this it seemed unnecessary for an introductory course to require

them.

-none

-all readings were helpful

-Applied topic 1 on the environment. Although I found interesting the standard value argument in

Taylor’s text, I always remain perplex on environmental texts because although what is presented is

very common sense usually these texts are very idealistic, i.e. when authors claim that we need to treat

fairly animal, the environment, the Earth etc. is idealistic because I fail to understand how people can

focus on environmental issues, animal welfare, equality maybe even between animals and humans etc,

ehen people are in struggle to be equal among themselves and make well being a standard everywhere.

Rawls’s theory of justice was a little confusing.

-None

-none, ask a relevant question.

-Some of the Wolff text as not all of it was super important.

-The main book for the class has the potential to be really useful into making a better experience if the

discussion was not based only on the wording or the examples of said event, the professor many times

when on and on about the same matter just because the book is not informative enough on its own.

There are better ways of using a text that just repeating what you read in class.

-the shue piece on torture wasn’t impossible to get though but it didn’t seem to add as much as the other

readings did to our class.

-Utilitarianism – least helpful – unclear, confusing

-Some readings were not as good as the majority, but the same applies to everything. Some are good

others are not.

-The short course reading was concise, but longer ones seemed to get off track.