Faculty and Staff News

Since we have not sent out a department newsletter for some time, we thought it might be a good idea to mention faculty comings and goings over the past several years.

Farewells

We are sad to be losing four of our faculty members this summer. David Copp and Marina Oshana are flying south to the University of Florida. Loren Lomasky has given up hope of ever catching any fish in the pond behind his house and is heading to the University of Virginia this August. As if that wasn't enough, Don Scherer has retired this year. The department lost two of our best known and loved personalities in the past year when Mike Robins and Ciro DeLuca passed away. We said goodbye to Chris Morris in the Spring 2002. Chris is now at the University of Maryland at College Park, where he is said to be in the process of forming a new Workers' Cooperative. Ned McClennen left in 2000 for the London School of Economics, however, he is to return to the United States in the Fall of 2003 to take up a position at Syracuse University. Jim Stuart retired in the Spring of 1998 and moved back to Tennessee, where he is rumored to be doing well and fine-tuning his bluegrass picking style. Sadly, retired faculty member Doug Day passed away in May, 1998.

New Department Officers

With the departure of David Copp, a new Department Chair was needed and the person selected is the aforementioned David Sobel. Congratulations to David. As he is in Australia until August 2003, Lou Katzner will be acting Chair until his return.

New Arrivals

Three faculty members joined the Department in the Fall of 2002. Two were brand new and one was a familiar face whom the department was happy to welcome on a more permanent basis.

Daniel Jacobson comes to us from the Department of Philosophy at Franklin and Marshall College. His areas of specialization are ethical theory, aesthetics, moral psychology and John Stuart Mill. His Doctorate is from the University of Michigan, where he wrote a dissertation entitled "Ethical Perspective: On Narrative Art and Moral Perception." He is currently in the process of publishing a book manuscript through Oxford University Press (Rational Sentimentalism) which he has co-authored with Justin D'Arms. (See his "Meet the New Faculty" piece elsewhere in the newsletter.)

Steven Wall is the author of two books: Perfectionism and Neutrality: Essays in Liberal Theory (co-edited with George Klosko, forthcoming from Rowan and Littlefield) and Liberalism and Constraint (Cambridge University Press, 1998). He received his a D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1997 and his dissertation, Liberalism, Perfection and Restraint won the 1997 Political Studies Association's Sir Ernest Barker Prize for Best Dissertation in Political Philosophy. Since the Fall of 1999 he has taught in the Philosophy Department at Kansas State University. He specializes in political philosophy.

Janice Dowell is the third and the most well-known to us of the three additions. She has been associated with the department since 1997, when she worked here as a lecturer, and she returned in 2001-2 as a Visiting Assistant Professor. She was also a Teaching Fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1989-1992) and at the University of Pittsburgh (1992-1993). She completed her dissertation ("A Defense of Semantic Primitivism") and received her Doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh in March of 2002. Her areas of specialization are the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. As many of you will know, she is married to our own David Sobel.

To date, two one-year full-time faculty members have been added, starting in the Fall of 2003. Lon Becker will be teaching full-time and Ian Young will teach as well as continuting to serve as the Department's Project Coordinator.

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