{"id":2299,"date":"2025-01-23T14:04:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T14:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/spotlight\/?page_id=2299"},"modified":"2025-05-16T18:45:15","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T18:45:15","slug":"philosophy-2024","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/spotlight\/philosophy-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"2023-24 – Philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\n\"Instructor<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tDepartment website\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t Nancy Stanlick, chair<\/p>\n

Active Students (as of Fall 2023)*<\/span><\/h2>\n

Undergrad majors: 171
\nUndergrad minors: 284
\nUndergrad certificates: 8
\nGraduate certificates: 13<\/p>\n

2023-24 Student Credit Hours: 33,176<\/span><\/h2>\n

*All active students with declared CAH programs are included in the enrollment counts.<\/small>
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The Department of Philosophy includes BA programs in philosophy, humanities and cultural studies, and religion and cultural studies, as well as minors in these areas. We also house an undergraduate minor in cognitive sciences, an undergraduate certificate in interfaith dialogue, and two graduate certificate programs in theoretical and applied ethics and cognitive sciences. In addition, we contribute to a new interdisciplinary undergraduate certificate program, developed in collaboration with the Department of Writing and Rhetoric, focusing on artificial intelligence, big data, and human impacts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With these interrelated programs, the Department of Philosophy serves both our own majors and minors, as well as students across the university who are interested in exploring the big questions that our humanities disciplines pose and seek to address. Whether students are looking to try to find the answers to questions about moral responsibility, the nature of reality, the search for a good life, the meaning of spirituality, the relationship between mind and body, the relationship between humans and God or gods, or the development and richness of human cultures, they have come to the right place in our department. We teach the methods through which people may investigate, theorize, write about, and act on concepts, theories, principles, issues, and actions that have been of interest to humanity throughout history. We use well-established and emerging methodologies and technologies to educate \u00a0and conduct research in the disciplines. They are important questions involving what we know and how we know it, what we believe and why that matters, what we value and what the meaning of \u201cvalue\u201d is, and to delve deeply and meaningfully into questions of the good life, of the nature of social and political existence and power, and our relationship to other animals and the natural environment \u2013 and so much more.<\/p>\n

This year, a new course in AI and big data ethics was added to our curriculum in support of the newly established \u201cArtificial Intelligence, Big Data, and Human Impacts\u201d undergraduate certificate. This interdisciplinary program\u2019s content was developed by Jonathan Beever (Philosophy) and Laurie Pinkert (Writing and Rhetoric). The Department of Philosophy is delighted to collaborate with the Department of Writing and Rhetoric to provide the foundational content for this important and timely connection to emerging technologies such as AI and its impacts on humans, societies and our natural and social world.<\/p>\n

The Religion and Cultural Studies B.A. was revised for this year to give majors more flexibility when completing the requirements for the program. In addition to the existing courses in the catalogue, the Philosophy B.A. now includes four REL classes for credit towards restricted electives (\u201cReligion and Applied Ethics,\u201d \u201cReligion and Psychoanalysis,\u201d \u201cSex and the Sacred\u201d and \u201cInterfaith Dialogue\u201d).<\/p>\n

We also have two internship programs in development that will provide our students with opportunities in experiential learning and gaining workplace experience that can be helpful for life after graduation. We look forward to sharing more details about these programs very soon!<\/p>\n

This year, Michael Strawser, who was chair of the Department of Philosophy for ten years, chose to transition back to the faculty. Thank you, Dr. Strawser, for a decade of dedicated service to our department. Nancy Stanlick, a long-time faculty member in the department and former associate dean in the College of Arts and Humanities, accepted the position as chair of the department as of August of 2023. Christy Flanagan-Feddon has been appointed assistant chair, providing valuable service to our department and programs in being primarily responsible for coordinating and initiating program developments and oversight, managing recruitment efforts and working to build high impact, experiential learning opportunities for students in the department. Flanagan-Feddon also co-manages several essential department functions.<\/p>\n

The faculty in the Department of Philosophy have been very productive this year. Luis (Louie) Favela (philosophy) published a new book in cognitive sciences with Routledge, and Ann Gleig (religion and cultural studies) published a new book on Buddhism with Oxford University Press. Stanlick\u2019s Routledge book on American philosophy was translated to Japanese. Our faculty publish and present their research in various venues on an equally large variety of topics, from food studies to metaphysics and from Islam to Latin American cultural studies and African philosophy. Our faculty published numerous articles in peer-reviewed venues and presented their work at over 40 conferences.<\/p>\n

This year, philosophy faculty \u00a0won Teaching Incentive Program Awards and Research Incentive Program Awards, and three were granted sabbaticals to concentrate on their research in the 2024-25 academic year. Our faculty (including Beever, Lanlan Kuang, and Stephen Fiore) received grant funding totaling over $4 million.<\/p>\n

The department welcomes two new faculty members, Emily (Em) Walsh and Brooke Rudow. Walsh joins the Department of Philosophy and the College of Medicine\u2019s Medical Education Department as assistant professor of medical ethics on August 8 after completing a post-doctoral position at Johns Hopkins University. She will teach medical ethics and honors ethics in biological science in the fall term and ethical theory in the spring, in addition to her work with medical students at the UCF College of Medicine. Brooke Rudow joins our department as assistant professor of philosophy, also on August 8, coming to UCF from Georgia College and State University. Rudow teaches philosophy and humanities, and in the fall term, she will teach two courses in philosophy and one in humanities, the latter being \u201cKey Figures in Humanities and Cultural Studies.\u201d Rudow is working on the theme of African American humanities in the Orlando\/Central Florida region for this course.<\/p>\n

Students may be interested in participating in our UCF Ethics Bowl team. Our team won the Southeast Regional Ethics Bowl in 2022, our second championship in three years. Since 2004, we have participated in all regional and in many national ethics bowl competitions (and won several of them).<\/p>\n

Our department and the Al-Ghazali Islamic Studies program hosted \u201cEvolutions of the Self in Islamic Thought.\u201d The Interfaith Dialogue program co-sponsored four webinar events ( \u201cHealing Within: The Curative Potential of Philosophy,\u201d \u201cHow Going Camping Can Help Save Democracy: an Existentialism Invitation,\u201d and \u201cResponding to the Planet\u2019s Survival: an Interfaith Panel on Religion and Ecology.\u201d Interfaith Dialogue hosted a \u201cLunch and Learn\u201d event featuring interfaith leaders representing Christianity and secular humanism.<\/p>\n

If you ever wondered what you might do with a degree in our disciplines in the Department of Philosophy, you might be pleasantly and profitably surprised to find that graduates in these disciplines often go on to graduate work in education and academia, law, clergy, hospital ethics consulting, \u00a0medicine, philanthropy, non-profit work, lobbying, entrepreneurial business ventures, museum directorship, humanities-related business and management (e.g., music, film, fine and performing arts management and practice), publishing and performance, among many others<\/a>. Our humanities disciplines apply to many areas of interest and inquiry, and perhaps most of all, the humanities disciplines in our department contribute meaningfully to investigations into \u2013 and understanding of \u2013 reality, knowledge and the good life.<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t

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Highlights<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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\"Photo<\/a><\/div>\n
UCF Announces 2024\u2019s 30 Under 30 Alumni Award Recipients<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Photo<\/a><\/div>\n
UCF Alums Reveal the Secret Behind Magic Company<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Pegasus<\/a><\/div>\n
2024 Founders’ Day Ceremonies<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":205,"featured_media":2846,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-fullscreen.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2299","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSpotlight 2023-24 - Philosophy at UCF<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"2023-24 year-in-review for the Department of Philosophy at the University of Central Florida in Orlando.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spotlight 2023-24 - 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