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Besides its academic degree programs the Philosophy Department offers a variety of other programs that serve the Department, the University community, and the citizens of New Mexico.

The O’Neil Lecture Series

Since 1988 the Philosophy Department has sponsored the O’Neil Lecture Series, a series of two public lectures, usually taking place in the spring, presented by a distinguished scholar in the history of philosophy. The series is named after Prof. Brian O’Neil, a popular and influential member of the Department in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, who died of cancer in 1985. It is supported by a small endowment. The lectures are widely advertised in the University and Albuquerque communities. In fall of 2007 over four hundred people attended an O’Neil Lecture given by Slavoj Zizek. The series is also an opportunity for faculty and graduate students, in particular, to get to know and interact with famous philosophers. Appendix II.6 is a list of the O’Neil speakers of the last nine years.

The Philosophy Department Colloquium Series

The Philosophy Department also sponsors a regular colloquium series. Colloquium talks are held most Friday afternoons in the departmental library (Humanities 519) during the term, though recently we have had to move to a larger venue in Dane Smith Hall. These lectures, which feature leading philosophers from other U.S. universities and abroad, are well attended by philosophy faculty and students as well as students and faculty from other

departments and members of the Albuquerque community. They are advertised by flyers posted around campus and by an announcement that goes out to our

extensive email list. Appendix II.7 contains a list of selected colloquium speakers since Fall, 1999. Funding to support travel of outside speakers is provided by the Gwen Barrett Foundation.

The UNM Graduate Student Philosophy Conference

Since 2003 the Philosophy Department has hosted an annual graduate student philosophy conference, which is organized and run by our graduate students. Each year a leading philosopher from another university is invited as the keynote speaker. Programs from the last three years (“The End of Philosophy,”

“Philosophy and Popular Culture,” and “Philosophy and Its History”) are found in Appendix II.8. The conferences have been partially supported by grants from the College of Arts and Sciences. Many of our students have presented papers at these conferences, but students from other universities have also attended and read papers. The quality of the papers has been very high. For the last three years the Department has covered the costs of publishing the proceedings of the

conferences. Although we encourage our students to submit papers to other philosophy conferences, especially divisional meetings of the APA (the American Philosophical Association), we find that our own conference provides a

particularly supportive, stimulating venue in which students may present and receive feedback about their work.

In spring of 06 the Philosophy Department hosted the annual meeting of the Southwest Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, which also provided our undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to hear papers by first-rate scholars in the field and to meet and talk with them.

The Philosophy Club and Phi Sigma Tau

In fall of 2005 Prof. Mary Domski, the Undergraduate Advisor, organized the UNM Philosophy Club. Membership is open to all UNM students, but the most active members have been undergraduate Philosophy majors. The club meets at least a couple times each month during the school year, usually Tuesday evenings in the Philosophy Department lounge. Food (pizza) and refreshments are provided by the Department. Events have included: meet-and-greet sessions for new

faculty, presentations by students and faculty of their work, open discussions of philosophical problems of general interest, and forums on issues relating to the profession, such as how to apply to graduate school, etc.

The Philosophy Dept. also has a chapter of Phi Sigma Tau, the national philosophy honor society for undergraduates. Members are formally elected to this club at the end of spring term on the basis of at least a 3.5 GPA in

Philosophy. The current faculty advisor for Phi Sigma Tau is Prof. Burgess. Phi Sigma Tau also sponsors a variety of events for Philosophy students and faculty throughout the year.

The Summer Seminar on Buddhism

Every June the Philosophy Department sponsors, together with the Religious Studies Program and Rinzai-Ji Zen Center, a two-week seminar on Buddhism, held at the Bodhi Manda Zen Center in Jemez Springs. The Seminar was founded in 1977 by Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the spiritual head of Rinzai- Ji, for the purpose of providing more accurate information about Buddhism for American students and practitioners. The Seminar is open to the public, but many participants are UNM students, who may obtain three hours of UNM credit, under Phil./Relig. 440/540, “Buddhist Sutras Seminar,” by attending both weeks.

Usually about 15-20 UNM students attend. The UNM course is administered by an instructor appointed by the Philosophy Department. Internationally-known Buddhologists are brought in to give lectures. Past speakers have included Carl Bielefeldt (Stanford), Philip Yampolsky (Columbia), Martin Colcutt (Princeton), Houston Smith (Syracuse University), Frederick Streng (Southern Methodist University), Harold Roth (Brown University), Peter Gregory (Smith College), Jay Garfield (Smith College), and Robert Buswell (UCLA). In the early days of the Seminar leading Japanese philosophers were invited, such as Keiji Nishitani and Masao Aabe. The Seminar provides an invaluable opportunity for our students to study Buddhism with distinguished experts in Buddhist Studies while