Discipline & Experience

I teach and study philosophy and ethics. Currently, I do so in the classroom, but in the past my “classrooms” have been anywhere from heavily wooded training areas in New York to a tent in a remote location in Syria. As a cadet at West Point, I led discussions for my peers on military ethics, which helped develop me as a leader once I commissioned. After leaving active-duty, I returned to a more traditional academic setting to pursue my Ph.D. My research fields are philosophy of psychiatry, moral psychology, and medical ethics. 

I currently teach Introduction to Philosophy and Issues in Business Ethics, but am prepared to teach Introduction to Ethical Theory, Moral Psychology, Philosophy of Psychiatry, Medical Ethics, and a range of other special topics courses. I have experience as a Teaching Assistant in Introduction to Philosophy, Moral Psychology, Business Ethics, and History of Ancient Greek Philosophy. I have taught classes ranging in size from seven students to forty-eight students. Prior to my experience as a graduate student, I was an active-duty Army Officer, and taught classes on diverse subjects to audiences consisting of my leaders, peers, and subordinates. Prior to commissioning, I led classes on professional ethics for my fellow West Point cadets.

Student Learning & Development as a Teacher

The goals of my courses change somewhat based on the content. For example, I aim for my introductory courses to be true survey courses, whereas a special topics course may have a particular theme. I design my syllabi with this in mind because students take courses for different reasons. In Introduction to Philosophy, they are often deciding whether Philosophy might be a suitable course of study for them, so it is my goal to expose them to a variety of subfields. In my courses, students learn how to: (1) read primary philosophical texts, (2) identify and engage with written arguments in class discussion, and (3) develop a clear and concise writing style. 

To accomplish the first goal, students only read one to two texts per week. Because the texts I assign are often difficult, it is important to choose excerpts that we can cover in class. Rather than assigning multiple chapters or an entire book, I have students only read material we can reasonably expect to cover during class. However, this does not decrease the rigor of the course, as several students report that they find the material challenging but rewarding.

For the second goal, students engage through multiple learning modes. My students thus far appreciate the mix of lecture and discussion. I limit lectures to providing context for our readings, and the discussions focus on identifying arguments, objections to those arguments, and counterarguments. These discussions are sometimes as one group, or we divide the readings among several small groups. We often engage in thought experiments, where each student gets to test their intuitions, then discuss with the group. In smaller classes, students learn and use each other’s names, creating a sense of community in the classroom. This is important because students report that they learn the most by listening to and engaging with their classmates.

To achieve the third goal, my courses have brief weekly writing assignments. These assignments are answers to reading questions, and are due after we cover the readings in class. This allows students time to reflect on the material and ask questions before writing. Each student receives individual feedback on their writing assignments, helping them improve over the course of the semester prior to writing their final paper. The final paper is on a topic of their choosing and is longer than the weekly writing assignments, so we devote some class time to peer reviews.

As I grow as a teacher, my goals are to learn how to better teach large groups of students, introduce more in-class learning activities, and generally improve upon my presentation of the material and the assignments I incorporate. I take advice from my course evaluations and solicit in-class feedback so that the learning process is collaborative. I aim to reach as many students as possible, while knowing that everyone’s learning style may not be the same.