GROUP – Graduate Recruitment of Underrepresented Philosophers
Each year the Department of Philosophy at UNC Charlotte hosts a Graduate Recruitment of Underrepresented Philosophers (GROUP) event. The GROUP event is designed for promising prospective MA students in philosophy from traditionally underrepresented groups, such as women, LGBTQ and gender variant people, people from economically disadvantaged communities, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and all Black, Indigenous and other people of color, including Chicanxs and Latinxs, Indigenous people, Pacific Islanders, people of African descent, and people of Asian and Arab descent.
GROUP is designed to increase the diversity of the academic pipeline in the discipline, particularly at UNC Charlotte, by recruiting a diverse group of undergraduates to the philosophy department’s MA program in Ethics and Applied Philosophy. We are committed to diversifying the discipline because of the philosophical importance of valuing different standpoints and experiences for the investigation and creation of knowledge.
Our M.A. program is housed in an interdisciplinary and intertraditional department, with teaching strengths and regular course offerings in areas such as Caribbean philosophy, Africana Philosophy, Latin American and U.S. Latinx philosophy, Indigenous philosophy, feminist philosophy, critical philosophy of race, U.S. pragmatism, Marxism, healthcare ethics, philosophy of biology, global ethics, aesthetics, pop culture studies, and continental philosophy.
This year’s workshop will be held on Wednesday, October 25, 2023 on UNC Charlotte’s main campus. Students will be introduced to the life of the department by attending a campus tour, a visit to one of our philosophy graduate seminars, an opportunity to meet with our current MA students, and a graduate program application workshop. We will also organize some one-on-one opportunities for prospective students to speak with our graduate faculty, and provide a general setting for prospective students to investigate what it means to pursue a graduate degree in Philosophy at UNC Charlotte.
GROUP attendees will also have their hotel accommodations covered during their visit to Charlotte and are eligible to receive travel reimbursements of at least $150 for their gas or flight costs.
Event Schedule for GROUP:
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
11:00–11:45am: Welcome and MA Program Logistics Overview
11:45am–12:45pm: Graduate Application Workshop (with boxed lunches)
1:00–2:15pm: Keynote: Stephanie Holt, “Aesthetic Mechanisms of Dehumanization in the Prison Industrial Complex”
2:30–4:00pm: Visit to Philosophical Methods graduate seminar with Dr. Ruth Groenhout
4:00–5:00pm: Campus tour
5:00–6:00pm: Pizza dinner in Philosophy Department
TO APPLY
We welcome attendees from any underrepresented group(s) who are considering applying to graduate school in philosophy for Spring 2024 or 2024–25.
For consideration for the event, fill out this application and ask a professor/mentor in your department to send a brief letter of recommendation on your behalf to Dr. Lisa Rasmussen (lrasmuss@charlotte.edu) before Monday, October 2, 2023.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Department of Philosophy’s Graduate Program Director, Dr. Lisa Rasmussen at lrasmuss@charlotte.edu.