BALTIMORE, MD- Dr. Scott Gravlee, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Mount Union, won a $1000 grant at last summer’s New Currents in Teaching Philosophy conference as part of the Council of Independent Colleges Institute for his Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL) project. 

“New Currents in Teaching Philosophy helps meet this challenge by bringing together the most dedicated philosophy instructors from CIC member institutions and introducing them to a group of highly innovative, field-tested philosophy courses, through intensive, collaborative sessions led by the original course designers,” explained the institute. 

At the conference, which took place to help philosophy professors teach this subject to students and understand this “high-stakes challenge,” as the Institute described it, Gravlee presented his project proposal and therefore, won a grant to put his project into practice throughout the 2021-2022 academic year. 

Gravlee’s project was meant to introduce students to different ways of living their lives—mostly as philosophers. Therefore, he let his students choose a philosophical theory or belief like Utilitarianism or the Socratic Method to live by throughout the semester. 

Gravlee expressed that he hoped to have impacted students’ lives through the experiential learning and teachings that the grant and his project allowed him to implement. 

“I expect to continue to refine both in-class exercises and the PWOL project, and I intend to bring some of the relevant exercises and projects into other philosophy classes,” expressed Gravlee regarding future teachings. “Such projects also open more opportunities for cross-disciplinary work by and with students, as they explore their own interests from a philosophical perspective.”