Undergraduate Philosophy Club: Seton Hall University

The membership dates to properly earlier than my time, as I solely began at Seton Corridor College in fall 2016. It’s gone by means of numerous iterations and modifications through the years, caused by the revolving door of latest college students who be part of the membership upon beginning faculty and depart upon graduating. Its historical past is one in every of continuous reinvention.  

Since I took over as the college advisor in 2016, we’ve got all the time had a president, vice chairman, treasurer, and somebody accountable for social media, assembly group, bulletins, and the like. Being an officer requires a non-trivial quantity of labor, so that they’re often chosen by first asking for volunteers amongst energetic membership members. If we don’t have sufficient volunteers, we ask philosophy majors who we expect would do a very good job.

We purpose to fulfill each two weeks, however throughout busy instances of the 12 months (e.g. midterms, finals), we meet month-to-month.

The scholars working the membership have lots of initiative, which makes my job simple. I present as much as the conferences, deliver meals every time attainable, be sure the related paperwork is crammed out, and chime in sometimes to run by means of some arguments for/towards numerous views being mentioned. My greatest contribution is bringing in visitor lecturers (in-person and remotely) to present college students the chance to work together with philosophers doing leading edge work of their subject.

I lean on thinker associates to present talks at Seton Corridor College sponsored by the Philosophy Membership. The time period “sponsored” right here is used loosely since we usually don’t have a price range for these talks.

Having audio system come in-person or remotely has been the spotlight of the membership for a lot of members. It offers them a possibility to study some philosophical points which may not be on their radar and, extra importantly, to partake in a philosophical dialogue with actually sharp skilled philosophers. By interacting with philosophers exterior our division, they’re uncovered to a broader vary of philosophy, each when it comes to content material and elegance.

Some more moderen examples embody Amitabha Palmer (College of Texas) speaking to college students about methods to productively interact with conspiracy theorists on-line. David Hershenov (Buffalo) gave an fascinating discuss on whether or not hell may very well be simply and James Stacey Taylor (The School of New Jersey) made an argument for premortem kidney markets.

The membership advantages college students by means of life-changing philosophical conversations. Each dialog we’ve got is life-changing within the sense that our lives are technically totally different than they have been earlier than. On a extra critical notice, it gives an necessary sense of group for the scholars, which has been all of the extra necessary throughout COVID-19 when campus was fairly naked. It affords critical mental engagement for the scholars and college alike. It has introduced some philosophically inclined college students into our division as secondary majors or minors. Extra usually, it’s simply been a substantial amount of enjoyable for everybody concerned.

Pre-Covid we had a social media presence. As soon as COVID-19 hit and we began assembly remotely by way of Microsoft Groups, we ended up simply speaking there and by way of e mail. We nonetheless preserve a Facebook page and an Instagram account, which we’ll restart as soon as we return to in individual conferences within the fall.