The American Philosophical Association (APA), the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT), and the Teaching Philosophy Association (TPA) are pleased to announce that Professor Stephen Bloch-Schulman (Elon University) has been selected as the winner of the inaugural Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching.
The Prize for Excellence in Philosophy Teaching, which includes $1,000 and a plaque, recognizes a philosophy teacher who has had an outstanding impact on the student learning of philosophy in undergraduate and/or pre-college settings. The selection committee received nearly thirty nominations of remarkable philosophy teachers in this inaugural competition. Four finalists were selected to submit more detailed information, with Bloch-Schulman emerging as the winner for his exceptional teaching achievements.
The chair of the selection committee said, “The committee was extremely impressed with the breadth and innovative nature of Dr. Stephen Bloch-Schulman’s teaching. His students and nominators note that his classes are unlike others; Stephen inquires with students. He shows students where and how to look, but he never tells them what to see. From the ‘Elon Academy for Pre-College Students’ to ‘Reclaiming Democracy,’ ‘Holocaust Studies,’ and ‘Rap, Race, and Gender,’ Bloch-Schulman creatively adapts research-verified best pedagogies to meet his particular students’ needs such that they are transformed as people by completing his courses. As one student put it, ‘I am a far better thinker, citizen, and person for having worked so closely with Stephen.’ His impact beyond the classroom—as an award-winning scholar of teaching and learning and active servant to the advancement of philosophy teaching and learning—has, simply, made the discipline of philosophy a better place.”
Stephen Bloch-Schulman is associate professor of philosophy and chair of the department of philosophy at Elon University. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy in 2004 from Marquette University, and then joined the philosophy department at Elon in 2006 after teaching at Ball State University in Muncie, IN, for the 2004–2006 academic years. He was promoted in 2010 and became chair of the department in May 2016. Bloch-Schulman works at the intersection of continental political theory and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
