A Word (or two) from the Chair

Using her immense persuasiveness and connections in high places, the Fish managed to obtain this world-exclusive statement from the powerful and austere Philosophy Department Chair, David Sobel.

Greetings Friends of Bowling Green's Philosophy Department,

Let me give you a brief update about the philosophy department. Many of the recent busy comings and goings of faculty are recorded in the Chocolate Fish under the heading "faculty and staff news". The most recent happening is that we have hired David Shoemaker. He works on ethics (including applied ethics) and personal identity. His publications in Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, the Canadian Journal of Philosophy, the Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, the Journal of Value Inquiry and many other venues are winning him a growing reputation in the field. He comes to us from California State, Northridge. You can read more about him at his web page as well as find links to many of his papers. We are delighted that David has decided to join us. He has a growing reputation as a researcher and astonishingly impressive credentials as a teacher of philosophy. David earned his Ph.D. from University of California, Irvine in 1996.

We will be trying to hire several more people in the coming years as the department marks something of a transition. Many of the older, longtime members of the department have recently been leaving and many younger, newer to BGSU faculty having been recently hired. The average age of the faculty is dropping quickly. We continue to have strong administrative support to aggressively hire to re-establish our previous numbers of faculty as we are currently several faculty short of full strength. The department remains committed to hiring aggressively in moral, political and applied ethics (which has traditionally been the department's areas of strength).

The department continues to enjoy a strong reputation. One measure of the Department's reputation in the discipline is its ranking in the 2003-2004 "Philosophical Gourmet Report" or "Leiter Report", which is an annual ranking of doctoral programs in philosophy. The "Leiter Report" is published on the world wide web by Blackwell. The 2003-2004 ranking was based on a reputational survey of more than 120 philosophers throughout the English-speaking world. The Report is widely considered to be the best available information on philosophy programs. The Report's web page has received more than 4 million hits since October 2002.

In Applied Moral, Political, and Social Philosophy (including Medical Ethics), Bowling Green has been rated as unsurpassed by any program in the world for each of the past five years. This year, Bowling Green's doctoral program is one of six programs rated as "Excellent" and ranked among the top programs in the world, along with New York University, Rice, Duke, and Princeton University.

In Metaethics, Bowling Green is rated "Good" and ranked among the top fifteen programs worldwide and among the top dozen programs in the United States. It is ranked as comparable in this area to MIT, Brown University, Cambridge, Oxford, and New York University.

In Political Philosophy, Bowling Green is rated "Good" and ranked among the top sixteen programs in the world. It is ranked as comparable in this area to Harvard, Princeton, Cambridge, and the University of Chicago.

We will also be welcoming several new visiting professors next year. Sean Foran (formerly at Kansas State University), Monica Gerrek (who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas), and Campbell Brown (a native New Zealander who is finishing his Ph.D. at ANU-RSSS) will be teaching for us next year and we are delighted to have such a talented group of young philosophers around who will add to the already vibrant philosophical community. We are also excited that David Hampton and Ian Young will again be with us for the upcoming year.

Our own Daniel Jacobson has won two very prestigious fellowships in recent months. He will be at Princeton's Center for Human Values next academic year and will be taking a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship the following Fall. Jacobson is working in collaboration with Justin D'Arms, a philosopher at Ohio State University, on a book tentatively entitled Rational Sentimentalim. Congratulations to Dan on his well deserved recognition of his talents. Our own Steve Wall was also at the Princeton Center for Human Values recently. We are one of very few philosophy departments anywhere to have two members who have won this most prestigious fellowship. Additional news on the fellowship front: David Sobel and Janice Dowell were visiting fellows at the Philosophy Program at the Australian National University, RSSS in 2003 and R.G. Frey enjoyed a year on fellowship with the Liberty Fund in 2003.

It goes without saying that our faculty continue to publish important works in all areas of philosophy. Many of these papers can be found on individual faculty member's web pages off of the department's home page.

We continue to enjoy success in placing our graduate students into good jobs in the field. Of the 42 Ph.D. graduates since the program's inception, 30 (or 71 percent) have found secure (meaning tenured, tenure-track, or similarly secure continuing employment). Of these positions, 23 are in academic settings, 4 are in non-academic settings related to the graduate's course of study, and 3 are unrelated to the course of study. Thus 64 percent of our Ph.D. graduates have found secure positions doing work related to their area of graduate study. Nine graduates (21 percent) continue to find academic work in their area of doctoral study, but in jobs with less security (e.g. temporary or adjunct positions, and 3 (or 7 percent) are still seeking employment. Almost all of those with less secure employment or who are still seeking employment (10 of 12) have graduated within the past 3 years. Additionally, Fred Miller has brought to the department over $159,000 in non-teaching external support for graduate students in the form of H. B. Earhart Fellowships over the past four years.

The number of undergraduate majors has been rising steadily and satisfyingly for the past 7 years now. The Office of Institutional Research here at BGSU tells us that the number of majors that the department has had in each of the past seven years has risen steadily and dramatically. Starting with 1998 and ending with 2004, the number of majors has been: 20, 22, 25, 26, 28, 35 and 42. Thus the number of majors has risen each year for the past five years and increased over 100% since 1998. Further, the number of minors in philosophy since 1999 (no numbers were available for 1998) has increased 50%. We are very proud of these numbers, as we think the strength of the department has been better advertised and made available to undergraduates in recent years and we are delighted at the response. Additionally, our undergraduates enjoy the opportunity to compete for a variety of departmental awards and to take place in a conference just for them that the department runs each year. The philosophy club is doing well and meeting weekly.

Yours,

David Sobel
Chair

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