The American Philosophical Association (APA), the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT), and the Teaching Philosophy Association (TPA) are pleased to announce that Professor Russell Marcus (Hamilton College) and Eduardo Villanueva (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru) have been awarded the 2020 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 a profound impact on the student learning of philosophy in undergraduate and/or pre-college settings. The selection committee received thirty-nine nominations of remarkable philosophy teachers in this year’s competition. Five finalists were selected to submit more detailed information, with Harrell emerging as the winner for her exceptional teaching achievements.
From the selection committee: “Dr. Marcus is one of the central figures in the success of the AAPT/APA teaching hubs, an important scholar of teaching and learning in philosophy, author of a logic textbook, founder and director of the Hamilton summer program for innovative teaching, and beloved mentor. His inventive team-based pedagogies and exemplary scaffolded assignments motivate transformative student learning.”
Russell Marcus is Associate Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Hamilton College, where he has taught since 2007, specializing in philosophy of mathematics and philosophical pedagogy. In addition to articles on mathematics and teaching, he has published a monograph, Autonomy Platonism and the Indispensability Argument (Lexington); a co-edited reader, An Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mathematics (Bloomsbury); and a logic book, Introduction to Formal Logic with Philosophical Applications (Oxford University Press). Russell is vice president of the American Association of Philosophy Teachers and the founder and director of the Hamilton College Summer Program in Philosophy, a two-week laboratory for pedagogical innovation that brings together faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates. Before arriving at Hamilton, Russell taught mathematics and computer science in public high schools in New York City and history, math, literature, and writing in a high school in Costa Rica. While in graduate school, he taught mathematics and philosophy as an adjunct instructor in various community colleges and four-year schools. At Hamilton, where he has won both teaching and research awards, Russell teaches Logic, Modern Western Philosophy, Infinity, Philosophy of Education, and Philosophy of Language, as well as seminars on philosophy of mathematics, intuitions, and Wittgenstein.
From the selection committee: “Dr. Villaneuva has changed the way philosophy is practiced in Peru, inspiring a letter writer to say that he is ‘the most important philosophy teacher in Latin America today.’ He removes barriers. Without his work, some people would not have access to college. Without his work, opportunities for philosophic engagement from around the globe would not be available to students at his university and beyond.”
Eduardo Villanueva is an assistant professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and an adjunct assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. He is also the founder and coordinator of the Research Circle on Analytic Philosophy at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Eduardo earned his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California after earning his M.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and his B.A. from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. His research and teaching are focused primarily on philosophy of language, logic, philosophical logic, philosophy of mathematics, metaethics, and the history of analytic philosophy.
