Department of Philosophy

[Subtle Electronic music plays]

[Footage of student walking towards Pearson House, home of Webster’s Philosophy Department]

Text on screen: Department Spotlight: Philosophy

Text on screen: Bruce Umbaugh, PhD, Department Chair, Professor, Philosophy

Bruce Umbaugh: Our mission in the Philosophy Department is to cultivate thinking critically and communicating effectively about significant matters to help people live more attentive, responsive, creative and meaningful lives. We offer a major in philosophy with an emphasis in ethics and social justice, art and creativity, or with an individualized emphasis on things like eco feminism, linguistics and philosophy of language, philosophy of race.

Text on screen: Emphasis in Ethics and Social Justice, Art and Creativity, Individualized Emphasis — Eco-Feminism, Linguistics, Philosophy of Race

Umbaugh: A wide variety of things.

Text on screen: Maggie McCarthy, LCSW - Clinical Therapist, Social Worker, BA ’17

Maggie McCarthy: My experience as a student of the Philosophy Department really helps me to be adaptable. Just knowing that I can take on unexpected things and kind of adapt to new situations has been a really valuable thing for me.

[Footage of Bruce smiling and speaking to students in class]

Text on screen: High-Impact Learning — Engage With Complex Topics and Become a Self-Sufficient Learner

Umbaugh: Our faculty really care about student engagement. We really want to build student agency on autonomy.

[Footage of a philosophy class in which Bruce engages and discusses topics with all of the students in the classroom]

Umbaugh: Classes in philosophy tend to be really heavy on discussion, a lot of reading, and then students come into class and we talk about what they've seen and what they've read and how they can apply that in other ways.

Text on screen: Cecilia A. — Student

Cecilia: All of the professors I have kind of feel like advisors. They want to foster discussion. It helps us kind of get a wider range of perspective from each other. They want the students to participate and exchange ideas.

[Footage of Students discussing ideas in the “Feminist Philosophy” course]

Text on Screen: Career Opportunities — Develop Skills for a Successful Life and Career

Umbaugh: Our graduates go on to succeed in life in a lot of different ways. We have graduates who've gone on to work on social justice, lawyers, nurses, mental health counselors.

Text on screen: Careers in — Social Justice Law, Non-Profit Leadership, Mental Healthcare, Academics and Teaching

McCarthy: As a social worker and a therapist, I've been exposed to people that just run the gamut from a lot of different backgrounds and life experiences. Having the philosophy, background has really helped me find ways to relate and connect with people. I think that I have more confidence approaching those situations each year.

Text on screen: Building Connections — Join a Community of Passionate Students and Connect With Professionals

Umbaugh: Each year, we organize and pull off a Philosophy Conference that draws students from all around the region.

Cecilia: The Philosophy Conference helps to kind of build skills around planning an event, working with other people, judges and reviewing papers and presentations, and also having the opportunity to present and then project ourselves.

[Footage of Students participating in the Philosophy Conference and asking questions to the keynote speaker]

Umbaugh: The experience of explaining your ideas and answering questions from an audience is really, really powerful for students.

[Footage of student giving a presentation in front of an audience and answering questions from the crowd; students smiling in class]

Cecilia: The Philosophy Department community is really strong, especially among students, not only because we have classes together all the time, but also because we have the Philosophy Coalition and we spend a lot of time outside of class and we organize the conference together and all of those things really build a good student community, which is great.

[Footage of students in the Philosophy Coalition at Webster’s Involvement Fair; students applauding a presentation at the Philosophy Conference; Cecilia smiling and looking at the camera]

Text on screen: Webster University — webster.edu

[screen fade to black]