Looking Back: Department News from the Past

2013-14: Stephen Puryear (Ph.D., Pittsburgh) and Sanem Soyarslan (Ph.D., Duke) appointed as Assistant Professors of Philosophy. Puryear, who joined the department in 2008 as a Teaching Assistant Professor, is promoted to Associate Professor in 2017, to Professor in 2023, and is appointed Department Head in 2024. Soyarslan is promoted to Associate Professor in 2020. Christine Pierce (Ph.D., Syracuse) retires from NC State on January 1, 2014, after almost 30 years on the philosophy faculty. The 2013-14 academic year marks the 50th anniversary of the major in Philosophy and the 20th anniversary of the major in Religious Studies.

2003-04: Douglas Jesseph, Professor of Philosophy, is Interim Department Head for the fall. Michael Pendlebury (Ph.D., Indiana) is appointed as Professor of Philosophy and Department Head in January 2004 after 20 years at the University of the Witwatersrand. Tariq al-Jamil (Ph.D. candidate, Princeton) and Anna Bigelow (Ph.D. candidate, University of California, Santa Barbara) are appointed as Instructors in Religious Studies. Both complete their Ph.D.s and are promoted to Assistant Professor in 2004. Al-Jamil leaves for Swarthmore in 2006. Bigelow is promoted to Associate Professor in 2010 and leaves for Stanford in 2019.

1993-94: The new B.A. in Religious Studies is approved. William Adler, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, spends the year as a Senior Research Fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Institute; Douglas Jesseph, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, spends the year as a Fellow at the National Humanities Center.

1983-84: Tom Regan publishes the landmark The Case for Animal Rights (University of California Press, 1983) and James VanderKam publishes Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series, 1994). Other faculty publications include anthologies on environmental ethics and business ethics edited by Regan, twenty articles in journals and books, and several book reviews.

1973-74: Richard I. Nagel (Ph.D. candidate, M.I.T.) appointed as Instructor in Philosophy and William Randolph (“Randy”) Carter (Ph.D., Virginia) as Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Nagel leaves NC State in 1980 to pursue a career in the food and beverage industry, passing away in 1998. Carter is promoted to Associate Professor in 1975 and Professor in 1980; he retires in 2004 and passes away in 2010.

1963-64: The new B.A. and B.S. in Philosophy are approved. William Norwood (“Red”) Hicks II, head of the department, completes his 36th year on the faculty at NC State. Including the 1963 summer sessions, the department teaches 62 course-sections with an average section size of 21 students.