The focus of this flash talk is a description of how our music therapy program faculty have been striving to build authentic relationships with a wider variety of community partners toward greater collective impact and equity in our practica courses. During my time as Clinical Coordinator, we have added 11 new practica placement sites with one additional starting Spring 2024. The addition of several of these sites stemmed from music therapy faculty discussions about the desire to serve a greater diversity of clientele in our music therapy practica courses. I believe the addition of these new sites has brought greater diversity and equity to the service we provide the community and enhanced student learning. Marianist education calls us to be adaptable, flexible, and continuously changing. This change may be uncomfortable, but to truly embrace the integral, diverse, and inclusive education the Marianist tradition calls us to do, we must be continuously reflective of our choices and evolve our practices.

I propose an approach to teaching philosophy that links philosophical works to the non-philosophical textbooks of students enrolled in a philosophy course. I illustrate my approach using the case of teaching philosophy of science, but it can be applied for teaching other philosophy courses. My proposal illustrates how disciplinary boundaries can be crossed to provide a holistic education for the common good.

At the beginning of the course, the professor of philosophy of science shows to students an example of a description of scientific method from a science textbook. Such descriptions are often presented by means of tidy schemas and are simplified explanation of the actual scientific practice. Students are invited to find similar descriptions in one of their science textbooks. As students read philosophy of science literature that examines key notions, such as models, theory, assumptions, hypotheses, values, research programs, paradigms, etc., they are asked to explain how theses notions relate to and enrich the description of the scientific method given at the beginning of the course. At the end of the semester, the initial description is enriched and the tidy schema becomes a complex representation that better describes the complexity of the actual scientific practice.

The advantage of my proposal is that it allows philosophy to complement the non-philosophical subject matter and helps students to gain a richer understanding of their subject matter, and helps them to appreciate the utility of cross boundary investigations and of a holistic education.