The Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy

Philosophy is an energetic and friendly small department with a faculty of active teacher-scholars whose areas of interest and expertise cover a wide span both of topics and of historical figures. We have no doctoral program. We do not advertise ourselves in order to attract students. However, we do provide students with a graduate education that is both broad and current, despite our limited resources.

At present the department includes seven regular faculty members, one or another of whom is often on research or sabbatical leave, plus a few adjunct instructors, most of whom are philosophy PhDs. In recent years the number of graduate students active at any given time has fluctuated between ten and fifteen.

Although our program is small in number, some of our students have been quite successful. One is now a professor and dean at Stanford University. One recently completed his PhD at Toronto, and now is a professor in Pennsylvania. Another is now in the PhD program at the University of Texas at Austin where he is concentrating on ancient Greek philosophy and minor in classics. Other students have gone into law, medicine, government service, community college teaching, the ministry, and the business fields, such as Nevada Bell.

Because we have a small staff and a small group of graduate students, we offer very few regular courses specifically for graduate students. Typically, our upper division undergraduate courses are open for graduate-level credit (sometimes on the basis of extra work and/or outside discussions with the instructor). Our graduate students earn the remainder of their philosophy credits by means of independent study arrangements with individual faculty members. For example, such a student might meet with a professor for two hours each week to discuss readings and the student's essays. However, you should be aware that professors are not obligated to provide independent study courses upon demand. Such courses are time and labor intensive. Nonetheless, we try to meet student needs when we can. Such courses must necessarily be on a topic with which we are quite familiar or in which we ourselves are interested in learning more. Given our small number, we cannot attempt to provide full coverage to the broad range of philosophical topics.

Before seeking admission to our program, you should therefore determine whether your interests can be met by our own range of competencies and interests. For the same reason, we cannot admit students to the MA program whose backgrounds and interests are incongruent with our own.