Dear friends and donors,
I would like to provide you with a brief overview of what makes the U‑M Philosophy a top-tier program internationally. Thanks to the support of alumni and donors, we have established wonderful programs and opportunities for our scholars in recent years. An internship program for our philosophy majors now offers valuable experience, and funding is available for travel to undergraduate conferences. We also support visits from outside speakers to our undergraduate classes, host a biennial graduate philosophy alumni conference, and run an annual workshop that helps undergraduates from groups underrepresented in philosophy to prepare for graduate study. Additionally, our department coaches high school students in an annual Ethics Bowl and recognizes academic achievement and service with undergraduate and graduate prizes.
Our undergraduate classes continue to thrive–our introductory level courses are 100% full with long waitlists! Upper-level courses are also full and have needed to be increased to accommodate students’ interest. Enrollments have been on a steady upward trend. One reason for this trend is our substantial participation in two popular interdisciplinary majors: philosophy, politics and economics (PPE), which offers a multi-disciplinary perspective on pressing social issues; and cognitive science, which brings the resources of philosophy, psychology and linguistics to bear on the project of understanding the human mind. The department’s long-standing research strengths in interdisciplinary work have served our students well. Our undergraduate students have achieved equally far-reaching success with careers in medical fields, journalism, law, computer programming, software engineering and project management!
You can help keep these good things happening. A gift of $50 or $100 could help an undergraduate travel to a PPE workshop to give a paper based on an honors thesis. A gift of $500 could help bring to campus a speaker who would interact with, and enrich, philosophy, PPE or cognitive science majors. Larger gifts help support our talented graduate students and visiting faculty, and even help establish endowed professorships that anchor our exciting curricular initiatives.
Please consider contributing this year, so that we might continue to enrich undergraduate education, graduate training, and community outreach. We are very grateful for your support at any level. You can click the "Give Online" button on our website to donate to any of our funds—Sustaining, Strategic, PPE Strategic, Ilene Goldman Block Memorial Fund in Philosophy, Allan Gibbard and Louis Loeb.
Thanks for your consideration, and Go Blue! (or as we like to say in Michigan philosophy, Go Grue!).
Yours,
Tad Schmaltz
Professor and Chair
