The Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities has awarded PhD Candidate, Janice Moskalik, two Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships, through their new program Reimagining the Humanities PhD and Reaching New Publics.
During the 2015-2016 academic year, Janice was one of the Simpson Center’s inaugural Mellon Fellows for Reaching New Publics. As part of this program, Janice was connected to a mentor Dr. Bill Harms, a philosophy instructor at Seattle Central College. Janice attended classes led by Dr. Harms and met frequently with him and his students. Throughout the year, Janice and Bill had the idea that Janice might try offering a Philosophy for Children course at Central, connecting the College and some of its students with the UW Center for Philosophy for Children’s Philosophers in the Schools program. Because Dean Bradley Lane was supportive of the idea, Janice spent the latter part of the year learning about how to run a new course at the Seattle Colleges.
Currently, Janice is one of the Simpson Center’s Andrew W. Mellon Summer Fellows for Public Projects in the Humanities. Janice’s project is called “Connecting Communities through Public Philosophy: Offering Philosophy for Children Courses in the Seattle Colleges”. This summer, with the support of this Fellowship, Janice will finish and submit the course proposal for the Philosophy for Children course at the Seattle Colleges, and continue developing her research on pedagogy in this area. Hopefully, the new class will be offered to students at the Seattle Colleges sometime next year.
We look forward to seeing the success of Janice’s project of engaging new publics in philosophical exploration and collaboration, made possible by the Simpson Center and the Mellon Foundation!
Update: Read more about Janice's work in this September 27, 2016 Simpson Center article.