A Word from the (Acting) Chair ... Professor Lou Katzner

I am pleased to have this opportunity to update our friends on the activities of the Philosophy Department over the last year. Of course I am not Dave Sobel. He is on sabbatical for the year as the result of earning a much-deserved faculty improvement leave from the University. He is working on a book about practical reason and well-being. In it he defends the view that what one has reason to do and what will benefit one are both determined by one's rationally optional concerns and lays out the implications of this view for morality. I am sure this year, with the chance to work on the project in an uninterrupted fashion, he will make great progress in enhancing his already formidable contributions to the field. As Acting Chair I have the unenviable task of trying to fill his shoes administratively.

I trust that you have already heard the sad news about the death of Jim Child on Christmas day. If you have not already done so, please visit our tribute to Jim. On a more positive note, we have made three wonderful additions to our faculty. After being with us last year as a Visiting Assistant Professor, Campbell Brown accepted our offer of a tenure-track position. Campbell earned his B.A. and M.A. in philosophy at the University of Auckland (he joins Ian Young as the second New Zealander in the Department), and has just finished his work in the exciting doctoral program at Australian National University. He works in normative ethics, political philosophy and ethics and economics and is already having an impact on the discipline with several publications.

Our second addition to the faculty is Jeffrey Moriarty who works in the areas of social and political philosophy, business ethics and ethical theory. Jeff earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University (1997) and his Ph.D. in philosophy from Rutgers (2002). He comes to us as Assistant Professor of Philosophy from California State University, Long Beach where he taught for the lasts four years. His work appears in a number of journals including two important pieces in Business Ethics Quarterly. Jeff adds significant strength to the Department’s focus in applied philosophy.

So does the Department’s third new face. George Agich will be familiar to some of our recent graduates as well as those who work in the area of bioethics. As the Chairman of the Department of Bioethics at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation he supervised several of our students who completed internships there. George earned his undergraduate degree from Duquesne (1969) and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Texas, Austin (1976). He is one of the leading clinical bioethicists in the world. He leaves the F.J. O’Neill Chair in Clinical Bioethics at the Foundation to assume the directorship of the Bowling Green Experience program—an innovative university-wide initiative designed to make critical thinking about values the hallmark of a BGSU undergraduate education—as Professor of Philosophy. We look forward to having George work with our graduate students as much as his commitments to the Bowling Green Experience program will allow.

One other change that occurred during the last year was the retirement of Diane Petteys. After 16 years of service as one of our secretaries, Diane (and Tom) now spend most of their time with their grandchildren and we see them around town rather than in the office. Diane’s replacement, Priscilla Ibarra, is not a new face at all. Priscilla is familiar to recent graduates as our outstanding student employee. We are indeed fortunate that she accepted our offer to take over from Diane and become a regular, full-time employee.

On the graduate student front, thanks to the work of our new Graduate Recruiter Steve Wall we have an excellent class of eight students just beginning their doctoral work with us. We also have three students who exhausted their funding last year. Ben Dixon, has accepted a one year renewable position in a very good philosophy department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Ben chose this position over a tenure-track offer from North Carolina A&T because of a smaller teaching load and prospect of a tenure-track position being authorized in the next year or two. When this occurs, Ben will undoubtedly be a very strong candidate for the position. Aaron Simmons, is teaching at Ohio Northern University in Ada while putting the finishing touches on his almost completed dissertation. Finally, Fred Curry has received an extra year of funding from the Graduate College based upon the major setbacks he encountered because of his eye problems and the enthusiastic support of his committee resulting from his terrific proposal defense in June. In another development Carolyn Council, with one year of funding remaining and the rough draft of her dissertation about 75% complete, has accepted an Assistant Professorship (tenure-track) at Florida A & M University.

One of the most important indicators of the quality of a doctoral program is the placement of graduates and their subsequent accomplishments. Although the BGSU Ph.D. program in Applied Philosophy is relatively young (the first doctoral degrees were awarded in 1993), the program has a remarkable placement record and program graduates are making significant contributions to the disciple in philosophy departments and other settings. In this regard I have a special request of graduates of the doctoral program. Although we get some information about you from the grapevine, the main way we hear of changes in positions, promotions and your scholarly accomplishments is from is from you. Please take a moment to check the information about program graduates displayed on our website (Completed Dissertations and Placements). In the event that what we have is not up to date, let us know at once. Also, if you have your own webpages, and we do not have a link to them, please send us the URL so we can add one. This is the best way to keep your friends in the BGSU extended philosophy community up-to-date on your activities. It is also the best way to enable those who visit our website to see the quality of our program as measured by the accomplishments of our graduates.

Best wishes to all for continued success during the coming year.

Lou Katzner

Acting Chair

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