UNR Philosophy boasts an undergraduate club that’s been active for more than two decades, dating back to at least before the arrival of any of the current faculty. Though the club has seen membership dip to only three or four interested students, its membership has also extended to nearly two dozen. Its longevity is a testament, in part, to club members and advisors’ enthusiastic commitment to community.
The club’s single officer is a volunteer president who manages the organization from semester to semester. The president is responsible for scheduling events, selecting topics, and planning the club’s activities in a way which meets the desires of the members. Because members are constantly graduating and presidents can cycle out fairly quickly, the structure of the club is susceptible to constant change. This keeps things interesting for everyone and gives a lot of freedom to the president to try and make changes they see fit.
Club meeting schedules are typically decided by vote at the beginning of the semester. Since the return to in person instruction, our club has decided to meet for an hour each Wednesday. The club is structured to begin a new topic every other week, and the intervening meeting is dedicated to addressing anything that was not covered in the first discussion as well as deciding on the topic for the next week.
UNR Philosophy Club topics have included things like discussions on democracy, the self, God and religion, death, and so on. Members have a wide range of different interests like education, psychology, sociology, and politics, so topics usually are approached from many different angles which allows for interesting and nuanced discussions. A special feature of our club, which reflects our focus on community, is the occasional meet-ups outside of normal hours in order to provide opportunities for students who cannot normally attend meetings.
Faculty advisors handle most administrative needs such as supplying food or keeping track of which members are attending meetings. The real value of faculty within the club, though, is playing an active part in discussions and helping to add in relevant information when appropriate. Getting to have comfortable, open discussions with Dr. Mariscal and Dr. Rondel gives club meetings a strong sense of community building and allows members to interact with professors in unique ways.
Members – some of whom have gone on to become professors, lawyers, and politicians, as well as physicians, journalists, and many other things – have additional opportunities to interact with classmates and professors in a more open and relaxed setting, as well as having a say in what kinds of topics are discussed. Given that actual philosophy classes can be a bit hectic and people do not always feel comfortable discussing topics in front of an entire class, our philosophy club’s intimate atmosphere provides members with opportunities to speak up, become more comfortable in philosophical discussions, especially in topics that they care about, and engage in another robust learning environment.
UNR’s philosophy club also welcomes visitors, who get a chance to experience the nature of philosophical discussions without having to commit themselves to an entire class, as well as having informal interactions with faculty in ways which may not be available to them otherwise. Faculty advisors are mindful that going to office hours to introduce yourself to a professor can be intimidating, so club meetings are a good way of bridging the gap and supporting a positive first contact. This also means that our department has more opportunities to introduce other students to philosophy and helps get students involved in those styles of thought who may not have been otherwise.
Our philosophy department consistently posts updates about faculty and students on our twitter @UNRPhilosophy. For questions about the club or other inquiries, feel free to email Jaxson Turk, the current club president or our main faculty advisor, Carlos Mariscal.
Carlos Mariscal
Before joining the department of philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno, Professor Carlos A. Mariscal was a Herzberg Postdoctoral Fellow working with W. Ford Doolittle in the departments of biochemistry & molecular biology and philosophy in Dalhousie University. He received his Ph.D. from Duke University. Carlos works in areas related to the evolution, origin, and distribution of life in the universe, a field known as astrobiology. His recent work has centered around convergence, the direction of evolution, the nature of the last universal common ancestor, the nature of extreme organisms, the origin and meaning of ‘Life,' and ethical issues regarding new biotechnologies. Carlos is currently concerned with the extent to which we can expect biological explanations to cover distinct or as-yet-unknown systems.
David Rondel
David Rondel is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nevada, Reno. He earned his Ph.D. from the department of philosophy at McMaster University in 2009. His areas of research specialization include egalitarianism, theories of distributive justice, Marx and Marxism, and American pragmatist political theory (particularly the work of William James, John Dewey and Richard Rorty). David has published widely in these areas. He is the author of Pragmatist Egalitarianism (Oxford University Press, 2018) and co-editor of Pragmatism and Justice (Oxford University Press, 2017). Among other things, he is currently working on a book project exploring the connections between philosophy and anxiety.
