Candidates Statements: 2020
The 2020 election for positions on
the AAPT Board of Directors is underway.
All AAPT members (and only AAPT members) are eligible to vote.
Current members have received (or will soon receive) an email providing instructions and a link to the ballot.
Questions about the ballot or election should be directed to
J.Robert Loftis (jloftis@lorainccc.edu) chair of the Nominating Committee
The polls close October 31, 2020.
The candidate statements are below.
Candidate Statements for Vice-President
Sahar Joakim
I’m new to the table. My Ph.D. in philosophy was conferred in May (2020). I spent the last three years serving on the Graduate Student Council of the APA. I served as Secretary the inaugural year and Chair as my last. Next, I am willing to serve the AAPT. What I offer is a wide range of experiences. Today, I’m a full-time adjunct professor. I’ve taught philosophy at the pre-collegial level, community college, and at both private and public universities. I’ve taught philosophy in-person, entirely online, and as a hybrid course; with class sizes from seventeen to thirty-five students. My journey began when I became a philosophy major at community college before transferring to UCLA to finish my B.A. in philosophy. I’ve thus taught and studied philosophy up and down the pipeline; and passionately motivated, I bring to the table a fresh perspective informed by pragmatic experiences.
Russell Marcus
Attending my first AAPT in 2008, I found a professional home. I had been a high school teacher for five years, I taught at community colleges and universities as a graduate student for fourteen years, and I was starting a post-doctoral fellowship. But I had never found my people. I came home from the workshop-conference with stacks of inspiration and specific new techniques, an unending fountain of growth and renewal that I am privileged to receive at every AAPT event.
From 2010 to 2016, I was chair or co-chair of the program committee, helping to promote our collegial ethos by curating proposals and effectively communicating encouragement and suggestions. I documented our work, freeing the committee for other initiatives like this summer’s workshops on anti-racist and pandemic pedagogies, which I helped organize. I have been an at-large member of the AAPT Board since 2016, mainly focused on supporting the Teaching Hubs at the divisional meetings of the APA, co-writing a handbook, again supporting the long-term success of the project.
My research focuses both on teaching and on the philosophy of mathematics. My logic textbook provides teachers new tools to connect formal logic with philosophy and other disciplines. I founded and direct the Hamilton College Summer Program in Philosophy, a laboratory for innovation in philosophical pedagogy. My recent pedagogical work has focused on developing team-based learning for philosophy.
Working with the AAPT has taught me primarily how to work effectively collaboratively. The best leadership empowers others, serving the people who offer their time and energies to the group. If elected, my main goals would be to continue to bring the excitement and support that I have found within the AAPT community to new people, to support them in their teaching however they need us.
Candidate Statements for Member-At-Large
Karl Aho
I teach in a rural, regional public university which primarily serves first-gen/low-income students. Pedagogically, I have a growing interest in Open Educational Resources and attending to the real costs of higher education, not least because I am committed to the Socratic notion that philosophy is for everyone. In the AAPT, I presented at the 2018 conference, served two years on the communications committee (especially by expanding our social media presence and highlighting members’ achievements), and organized a Teaching Hub session.
I hope to serve on the board because attending my first AAPT teaching workshop helped transform my own teaching. I am further compelled by the rich experiences of community the AAPT offers, especially at events, but also through the conversations that occur between them. I hope to invite others into our community of practice–especially those who may lack disciplinary, pedagogical, or material resources in the contexts where they teach.
Joshua Anderson
I am grateful for having been nominated for Member at Large of the AAPT Board. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Virginia State University. VSU is an HBCU and Land Grant University, and roughly 75% of the student body are Pell Grant recipients. My teaching, research and service at VSU gives me a distinctive perspective that may prove valuable to the Board and AAPT. I am also excited to bring my experience with contemplative pedagogy, which I have used with great success in the classroom, and about which I have given conference presentations, to the AAPT. Finally, I look forward to the opportunity to apply the skills I have developed through my service and committee work, and in my previous, non-academic, life in management to help continue the vital work that the AAPT does for students, educators and our discipline. Thank you for your consideration and support.
Sarah Donovan
I am completing a first term as a member-at-large on the AAPT board and I wish to run again because I strongly believe in the mission of the AAPT. I bring to the position years of experience in leadership roles including my recent term on the AAPT board, two years as the interim dean of integrated learning, three years on an APA committee on the Status and Future of the Profession, and many years as the faculty coordinator of the first year program at my home institution. In addition to leadership roles, I am entering my eighteenth year of full time teaching at the college level. I also recently published two co-edited volumes on equity, diversity, and inclusion in the classroom with a community of scholars, and I am committed to bringing what I have learned from that experience to AAPT initiatives. I would welcome the opportunity to continue to be a part of the AAPT board.
Monica Janzen
I have been teaching philosophy for over 15 years, and currently teach at Anoka Ramsey Community College. Despite my heavy teaching load and large number of students, I see my role as teacher to help equip students to navigate complex philosophical questions that impact their own lives. I am committed to helping students develop critical thinking and analysis skills so they can be informed and active citizens. I am interested in questions regarding pedagogy, undergraduate research and other high impact teaching practices, civic engagement, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. I recognize the urgent need of philosophy teachers to address issues surrounding equity and diversity in our classrooms, curriculum, and communities. I want to serve on the AAPT board to help represent community college faculty and student needs and contribute to the innovative work of the AAPT.
Tracie Mahaffey
I am interested in serving as a member-at-large as a way to give back to the AAPT and contribute to the flourishing of the organization. I attended my first AAPT meeting in 2006 as a summer seminar participant. It was an unforgettable experience. Although I do not have previous board experience with the AAPT, I do bring both administrative and curriculum development experience with me. I am currently Senior Teaching Faculty (a non-tt teaching professor) and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Florida State University. I have experience in curriculum development for both in-person and online courses. I am directly involved in the training of our graduate student instructors. I manage TA assignments for approximately 60 active graduate students, create the course schedule, and assign courses to GSI’s. I also developed our discipline-specific teaching course and serve as the faculty liaison for FSU’s Program for Instructional Excellence (PIE) Associate.
Russell Marcus
Attending my first AAPT in 2008, I found a professional home. I had been a high school teacher for five years, I taught at community colleges and universities as a graduate student for fourteen years, and I was starting a post-doctoral fellowship. But I had never found my people. I came home from the workshop-conference with stacks of inspiration and specific new techniques, an unending fountain of growth and renewal that I am privileged to receive at every AAPT event.
From 2010 to 2016, I was chair or co-chair of the program committee, helping to promote our collegial ethos by curating proposals and effectively communicating encouragement and suggestions. I documented our work, freeing the committee for other initiatives like this summer’s workshops on anti-racist and pandemic pedagogies, which I helped organize. I have been an at-large member of the AAPT Board since 2016, mainly focused on supporting the Teaching Hubs at the divisional meetings of the APA, co-writing a handbook, again supporting the long-term success of the project.
My research focuses both on teaching and on the philosophy of mathematics. My logic textbook provides teachers new tools to connect formal logic with philosophy and other disciplines. I founded and direct the Hamilton College Summer Program in Philosophy, a laboratory for innovation in philosophical pedagogy. My recent pedagogical work has focused on developing team-based learning for philosophy.
Working with the AAPT has taught me primarily how to work effectively collaboratively. The best leadership empowers others, serving the people who offer their time and energies to the group. If elected, my main goals would be to continue to bring the excitement and support that I have found within the AAPT community to new people, to support them in their teaching however they need us.
Jack Musselman
The AAPT improves my teaching and renews my faith in philosophy, and I’d like to repay the karmic debt as a Member At-Large. I’ve presented at three AAPT conferences, served on the Nominating/Elections Committee in 2008, the Finance Committee since 2011, and hosted the conference in 2012. After teaching at a community college in MA and as an adjunct at a liberal arts college in Texas, I directed my college’s ethics center providing consultations to colleagues, government agencies and non-profits. I usually teach Ethics, Legal Ethics and Environmental Ethics, and my research focuses on how deliberative dialogues might bridge partisan political divides. I’d bring to the Board experience in administration, securing CIC grants to improve online teaching, reviewing submissions to College Teaching, and a strong desire to serve with like-minded souls. I’d support efforts to increase AAPT’s contingent faculty membership and efforts to offer teaching consultations to our members.
Monica Poole
Most face-to-face conferences are not accessible to me; the expansion of remote professional development has increased my engagement with and appreciation for the AAPT. I would like to contribute to this ongoing expansion as a member of the AAPT Board. I am a full professor of philosophy and religion at Bunker Hill Community College. My introductory courses engage students in deep reading reflecting the global and social diversity of philosophy — especially in pre-modern texts. I also teach through writing: most recently, I contributed a chapter to _Philosophy for Girls_ (Oxford, 2020), a womxn-centered collection for teenage readers. I chair my department, and I have held other relevant leadership roles in curriculum development & outcomes assessment. Philosophy is taught in a wide variety of contexts; my lived experiences in community colleges, state universities, theological seminaries, online learning (since 2002), the Ivy League, and homeschooling would inform my service on the Board.
Marcus Schultz-Bergin
Since beginning my graduate students in philosophy, I have had a keen interest in high impact pedagogical strategies. In my own teaching, I regularly deploy evidenced-base pedagogical strategies such as Team-Based Learning, Project-Based Learning, and Specifications Grading. I also aim to share my experiences with others, regularly writing about my own strategies on my website and engaging with others through various avenues. In my 3 years at Cleveland State University, I have won 2 Teaching Enhancement Awards that involved, among other things, making and evaluating curricular changes and reporting the findings to the university at large. I have also regularly facilitated professional development trainings within my University, and hope to extend that work to the higher education community at large.
My aim in serving on the AAPT board is to advance the focus on evidence-based pedagogies and effective course design that simultaneously enhances student learning and eases the burdens on faculty. I hope to do this through encouraging the organization of professional development trainings relating to course design frameworks as well as methods for evaluating teaching interventions.
Renée Smith
I am a professor at Coastal Carolina University, and for the last 18 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 just completed a 2-year term on the board of the AAPT and during this time I was the organizing chair for the Pacific APA Teaching Hub (postponed). I also serve on the board of the Teaching Philosophy Association, which oversees the journal Teaching Philosophy.
I look forward to the opportunity to continue 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.
Lenore Wright
Greetings fellow philosophers! Anne-Marie Schultz, Master Teacher at Baylor University, kindly nominated me for this position. As an interdisciplinary scholar, I value co-authorship and the scholarship of teaching and learning (my co-authored essays appear in Teaching Philosophy and Journal of Interactive Instruction Development, and I have recently co-edited a book titled, Called to Teach: Excellence, Commitment, and Community in Christian Higher Education). As a teacher—I am an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Honors College at Baylor—I value communicating philosophical concepts across instructional modalities and contexts. Team-teaching in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core has shaped my view of the classroom as a subject-centered space for critical reflection and discourse. As an administrator—I direct Baylor’s Academy for Teaching and Learning (ATL)—I enjoy giving faculty a platform to share expertise and teaching practices. I would be most honored to apply my twenty-year experience to the work of the AAPT.
Questions about the ballot or election should be directed to
J.Robert Loftis (jloftis@lorainccc.edu) chair of the Nominating Committee
The polls close October 31, 2020.
