Candidates’ Statements: 2018
The 2018 election for positions on
the AAPT Board of Directors is underway.
AAPT members have received an email (October 1st) explaining the
ballot process and providing a link to the ballot.
The candidate statements are below.
The polls close October 31, 2018.
Candidate Statement for Vice-President
Emily Esch
I have been involved with the AAPT since 2008. I was elected to the Board of Directors after attending my first conference and served as the Executive Director from 2011-2017. As Executive Director, I helped the Board transition from one generation to the next. Under my leadership, we restructured the organization: rewriting bylaws, contracting the Philosophy Documentation Center to manage our membership, organizing new standing committees, and writing new operational procedures. During my time as Executive Director, membership doubled, we began the One-Day Teaching and Learning Workshops, we began our journal, AAPT Studies in Philosophy, we partnered with PLATO to bring high school teachers to the biennial conference, and we began a fruitful partnership with the APA’s Committee on Teaching of Philosophy which resulted in the APA/AAPT Teaching Hubs held at the APA Divisional meetings. Additionally, I am a facilitator for the Teaching and Learning One-Day Workshops, co-edited Philosophy Through Teaching, which commemorated the 20th biennial conference of AAPT, and co-edited the first volume of AAPT Studies in Philosophy. I am also on the Board of the Teaching Philosophy Association, which oversees the journal Teaching Philosophy and in that capacity helped create the APA/AAPT/TPA Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching and currently serve on the Selection Committee. I received the AAPT’s Award of Merit for Outstanding Leadership and Achievements in the Teaching of Philosophy and an Honorable Mention for the Lenssen Prize.
If I were elected VP, I would first focus on institutionalizing all of our successful initiatives; that is, I would make sure that we have the procedures and structures in place to ensure that these initiatives will continue beyond the charismatic personalities currently involved with them. Secondly, I would turn the Board’s attention to thinking about how the AAPT might further support developing philosophy graduate students into learner-centered teachers.
Christina Hendricks
I am finishing a second, 2-year term on the AAPT Board, and would like to continue my service to the organization in a deeper way. Since being elected to the Board I have been a member of the Teaching and Learning Committee (and Chair of that committee for two years) as well as the Awards Committee. This year I served as the Accessibility Liaison for our 2018 conference.
At my institution I am a Professor of Teaching, which is a teaching-focused, tenured position somewhat like a full Professor. I am also the Academic Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology at UBC, where I work with a team of amazing people on professional development workshops and resources, learning technologies, curriculum and course design, and more.
I am particularly committed to issues of diversity, equity and inclusion, not only in our activities as an organization and at our biannual conference, but also in relation to the teaching of philosophy more broadly. I am also excited to continue and strengthen our ties to other organizations such as the APA Committee on Teaching and PLATO, as well as to find new connections we might make, such as with Minorities and Philosophy.
Candidate Statements for Member-At-Large
Mark Battersby
I attended my first AAPT conference this summer and was impressed with the organization the attendees and presenters. I am interested in finding ways to participate and support the organization. I taught philosophy at Capilano University for over 40 years. I focused on teaching philosophy, curriculum reform, democratizing the university and research on critical thinking and informal logic. I taught critical thinking at a number of other universities including Stanford, and have presented numerous professional development workshops on critical thinking in Canada and the US. I was twice president of the faculty association and faculty representative on the University board and the board of ACCC, the Canadian organization of colleges. I have written two critical thinking texts: Is That a Fact and, with Sharon Bailin, Reason in the Balance: An Inquiry Approach to Critical Thinking Inquiry. I currently lead philosophy cafes and remain enthusiastic about improving teaching and students’ critical thinking.
Sarah Donovan
I am interested in serving as a member-at-large on the AAPT board because I want to contribute to the vitality of the association. I believe in the mission, I enjoy attending the conferences, and I appreciate the community. I bring to the position several years of experience in leadership roles including two years as the interim dean of integrated learning. Off campus, I am currently serving a three-year term on the APA Committee on the Status and Future of the Profession, and I recently served on the program committee for the AAPT. In addition to leadership roles, I am entering my sixteenth year of full time teaching at the college level, and my third year of coaching a group of high school students for the National High School Ethics Bowl. I look forward to learning more about how I can contribute to the current initiatives, and how I can help to develop new ones.
Jane Drexler
I am Associate Professor at Salt Lake Community College, where my main course-design principle is that philosophy has something to contribute to a life well-lived, and where I see my students as the ¬stuff of philosophy: struggling for meaning and self-purpose, seeking happiness and a good life; trying to make their mark, stake their claim, and find their place. I earned my Ph.D. in 2004 from Binghamton University, specializing in Ethics and Political Philosophy. I won the SLCC Foundation Teaching Excellence Award, and the National Blackboard Exemplary Course Award. I’ve published in general-audience, and peer-reviewed, journals and books; most recently, Philosophers in the Classroom (Hackett, 2018). This year, I participated in the NEH Summer Institute on Reviving Philosophy as a Way of Life. I am currently Chair of the Program Committee for the AAPT conference-workshop (which I would be interested to continue doing as a member of the Board).
Paul Green
A member since 2002, I have been involved in the AAPT in many ways: Program Chair, Program Committee member, Teaching & Learning Committee member, Regional Workshop facilitator, APA group meeting organizer. The AAPT has been for me a place to recharge my batteries and renew my commitment to teaching. Now I want to focus on how I can give back to this organization to which I owe so much. I am excited about our opportunities for expansion; never before have so many philosophers been so interested in teaching well. I would bring to the board an expertise in SoTL, a good understanding of budgets, and an unrelenting cheerfulness that I’m told makes me a good colleague.
Kristina Grob
I attended my first AAPT conference in 2016 and was overwhelmed by the warmth of the community I found there, specifically, folks who loved both teaching and philosophy with equal enthusiasm. Even before the end of the first day I knew I wanted to be back, and I found in 2018 that I was even more grateful for the community of teacher-scholars there.
I want to serve on the AAPT board so I can give time and energy to the group that helps me grow as a teacher and as a colleague. I’m on the tenure-track at a two-year institution where I am the only philosopher and my goal are these: to bring back to my school what I learn in my work with the AAPT to raise the profile of philosophy there and to use my energy as junior faculty to serve my philosophy-teacher colleagues through AAPT initiatives.
Russell Marcus
A committed member of the AAPT since 2008, I was program chair for three workshop- conferences, 2012-2016, preparing a guide for future programs. In my one term as at-large Board member, I have been active in establishing and planning the Teaching Hubs. I would like to continue our work with graduate training, to develop more effective ways for teachers to share resources, and to raise the profile of our organization. Most importantly, I want to remain faithful to our core constituency and to continue to be inclusive and welcoming to all teachers of philosophy.
I was a New York City public high school mathematics teacher and taught high school for five years before starting graduate work at CUNY. During graduate school, I toiled as an adjunct, first mathematics at a community college and then philosophy. After graduating, I landed at Hamilton College, where I am now an associate professor.
Scott McElreath
I have been a member since 2002 and on the Board of Directors as a member-at-large for the last six years. I facilitated workshops at seven AAPT workshop/conferences and was on the Program Committee for six of them. I chaired the Awards Committee twice (once with the additional responsibility of finding speakers for the biennial conference), served on the Lenssen Prize Committee twice, worked on the Publications Committee, and organized a session at an APA Division meeting. I am an editorial board member for our journal, AAPT Studies in Pedagogy, and a reviewer for our Teaching Hubs. As a continuing member-at-large, I would bring first-hand experience with how the AAPT’s Board and committees operate, institutional memory, a sense of the AAPT’s current direction, percolating ideas about how this fine organization could grow and improve, and representation of the perspective of faculty members at small private liberal arts colleges and universities.
Rebecca Millsop
As a Member at Large, I will advocate for the importance of teaching within the profession, as well as promote adaptive pedagogies to better serve philosophy students in various institutional settings. Having studied or taught at R1 public and private universities, a community college, and a land-grant university–the University of Rhode Island–where I now lecture, I deeply believe that being a teaching philosopher is the most valuable activity I can engage in as an academic. I also believe that our discipline can have a greater impact on our students and society if this view was more widely held. From the first workshop I attended, I fell in love with the AAPT, feeling at home communing with other philosophers who prioritize teaching in our profession and I immediately knew that I wanted to be involved; I would be incredibly grateful for the opportunity to give back through service.
Rebecca Scott
I am an Assistant Professor at Harper College (a 2-year college outside Chicago), and I have been a member at large on the board of the AAPT for the last 4 years, beginning when I was a graduate student. I have greatly appreciated the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally through the AAPT, and would be grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve. As a member at large, I am currently on the Teaching and Learning Workshop committee and am the chair of the APA Conference committee, which helps to plan the Teaching Hubs at the APA division meetings. I have also been a facilitator for several AAPT workshops including the graduate seminar at the 2018 conference. Moving forward, I am especially committed to increasing the diversity of AAPT membership and to ensuring that the organization continues to work to create a friendly, inclusive, and welcoming environment.
Renée Smith
For nearly 20 years, my professional life has been focused on teaching and learning. I have published teaching-related papers and given teaching-related conference presentations—including multiple presentations at AAPT conferences. I have developed new courses, attended workshops, and read broadly about teaching and learning. I serve as an instructional coach providing observations and mentoring to faculty. I have completed certifications for distance learning and instructional coaching.
I have served on two APA committees—the Computers and Philosophy committee and the Committee for Pre-College Instruction in Philosophy. For these committees, I organized several panels for APA meetings.
I look forward to the opportunity to serve this community of philosophy teachers, and I would especially like to become involved in mentoring new philosophy teachers and creating opportunities for professional development relating to teaching.
Wendy Turgeon
I have been involved in the AAPT as a presenter and attendee over the past three meetings and some previous ones as well. My research interests are in philosophy of childhood and philosophy for young people. The AAPT has offered me a phenomenal support system for improving my pedagogy over the years and my college teaching has benefitted from those experiences. Currently I serve on the board of PLATO and am also the chair of the APA Committee on Pre-College Philosophy. At my college I am chair of our small philosophy department but also serve this year as the interim executive dean. From these facts about me you can see that I am dedicated to teaching philosophy at all levels; I grapple with assessment and curriculum design; and I am continually learning from my AAPT colleagues. I would be honored to contribute to the work of the AAPT.
