Values and value awareness are central dimensions of the philosophy program at LaGuardia Community College. The broad and fundamental values of the program include the development of self-awareness, the recognition and overcoming of confusion and alienation, and the emergence of clarity and integration. Philosophy (seen as the process of critical reflection, capable of examining any aspect of experience while maintaining the integrity, rigor, and systematic nature of the enterprise) can help students explore life experience by means of "life concepts," such as freedom, morality, sociality, religiousness, and love. Analyzing these concepts forces students to become aware of the concepts' abstract and experiential dimensions and the affective and non-reflective nature of their own values. The centerpiece of philosophical analysis conceived as the exploration of life experience is the careful opening up of values, so that students come to acknowledge what their values are and begin to reflect upon and evaluate them. In opening up value analysis, it is most effective to raise particular problems and let students respond, revealing what values are held explicitly and implicity. One of the most difficult aspects of employing this method is getting students to recognize it as a method--a slow, patient, systematic analysis of a dimension of experience. Therefore the introductory course in LaGuardia's philosophy program introduces students to the method, while advanced courses such as Ethics and Philosophy of Religion focus on particular aspects of life experience. (LAL)