Dr. Nate Jackson was named assistant professor of philosophy this week, ending a search that began at the start of the fall semester. He is a Capital alumnus and has been serving as a philosophy instructor at Capital since the spring of 2015.
“Capital is a really attractive place to be…there’s a lot potential for philosophical growth here,” Jackson said. “When we actually get going in philosophical conversation, [students] are really engaged and passionate about it. And that’s a really fun experience as a teacher.”
Jackson will start the fall semester as a full time professor on the tenure track.
At present, the philosophy and religion department has two philosophy instructors, Jackson and Michael Hiltbrunner, who are both term faculty. The rest of the curriculum is covered by adjunct professors.
“We’re kind of in a unique position, since the department found itself with no philosophers,” said Craig Burgdoff, religion and philosophy professor, and head of the search committee. “We had a very wide definition for the search. All we needed was ethics, and every philosophy PhD is trained to teach ethics.”
The search was conducted nationally, and the committee began reviewing applications in October. Candidates were assessed on several factors.
“One of the major criteria was how they would go about rebuilding the department,” Burgdoff said. “We also wanted to see how they interacted with students, and how well they could handle the teaching load at Capital.”
The candidate pool was eventually narrowed to four candidates, who were invited to visit the campus. Each candidate taught an ethics class and presented a campus-wide talk about some of their research.
“I thought that all [the talks] were strong, especially three of the four, but Dr. Jackson’s was clearly the best,” said Nick Bochenek, senior philosophy student. “It showed him as a person, as well as him as a philosopher. That’s really important … since philosophy is about real life.”
In addition to department faculty, the hiring committee included two outside members, one from the humanities, and one from an unaffiliated department. It was their responsibility to ensure the selected candidate would contribute to the larger campus community.
“All of [the candidates] were qualified and the question became which one best fit the needs of the program,” Burgdoff said. “Dr. Jackson really distinguished himself in the classroom, particularly in his ability to engage students in discussion. He also had very strong ideas about how to rebuild the program.”
Jackson will continue to teach many of the same courses he does now, including modern philosophy, epistemic injustice, and ethics. He will also be adding new curriculum.
“I’m looking forward to developing things like existentialism, philosophical issues in feminism, philosophical issues in multiculturalism, and other course that make some kind of connection to students’ actual lives,” Jackson said.
The committee initially requested to hire two full time philosophy faculty, but was not give authorization due to lack of funding.
However, Burgdoff said that they have plans to hire a second philosophy professor next year.
“The second hire will be more narrow. We won’t want someone with the same focus as Jackson; we will want someone who is complimentary,” he said, “for example, someone with a focus in non-western philosophy.”
Jackson is also looking forward to adding faculty to grow the department.
“New faculty need to be able to contribute to the teaching of current classes and also add to the curriculum.” Jackson said. “We’re really an active department, and I think that with the right people that will translate into good things for philosophy at Capital.”
