Philosophy at City Tech

Courses Taught

My most basic responsibility is teaching core philosophy offerings at City Tech.

Ethics, PHIL 2103

Health Care Ethics, PHIL 2203

Interdisciplinary Health Care Ethics, PHIL2203ID

Philosophy of Law, PHIL3211

Philosophy Discipline Coordinator

I have served as the Philosophy Discipline Coordinator since 2016. A discipline coordinator is like a mini department chair, responsible for coordinating all the activities undertaken by the discipline at City Tech. My responsibilities in this role include assigning 12 faculty members to more than 50 philosophy sections per year; assisting the chair in modifying and updating the schedule every semester, ensuring that offerings meet City Tech requirements, meeting consistently with the chair and organizing Discipline meetings, and overseeing all matters involving philosophy at the college level (helping students obtain transfer credits, awarding transfer credits to incoming students, organizing adjunct faculty hiring and promotion, etc). 

Curriculum Development

In addition to offering my own courses, a significant part of my teaching responsibilities involves developing philosophy curriculum at City Tech. 

ID courses

In 2015 I successfully applied to teach PHIL 2203 (Health Care Ethics) as an interdisciplinary course. Since this time I have offered this course about 20 times. The interdisciplinary version of this course is always offered at least twice a semester because it meets the needs of a subset of students who are required to take both Health Care Ethics and an interdisciplinary course. In order to meet this need on a sustainable basis, I have worked closely with four of our adjuncts to get their own sections of Interdisciplinary Health Care Ethics approved. 

Pathways Updates

CUNY-wide curriculum requires that most students take Pathways courses, the term used for general education courses that are required for all majors. Getting CUNY approval to offer an existing course as a Pathways course involves rewriting the outline for the course to meet Pathways requirements and submitting an application to the Pathways Committee. I successfully obtained Pathways updates in four classes and have assisted other faculty in successful Pathways applications as well.

Authored: 

1. Existentialism (PHIL 3210) for “Individual and Society.” Coauthored with with Mary Gennuso
2. Business Ethics in a Global Context (PHIL 2114)
3. Philosophy of Law (PHIL3211)
4. Health Care Ethics (PHIL2203)

Mentored adjunct faculty submissions:

1. with Carlo Alvaro, Logical Thinking (PHIL 2102)
2. with Keith Whitmoyer, Philosophy of Art and Beauty (PHIL 2120) 

Course Development

I successfully developed and proposed the first business ethics course to be offered at City Tech (Business Ethics in a Global Context, PHIL 2114). This course ran for the first time in Fall 2024 (taught by Prof. James Ong). 

Open Educational Resource (OER) Philosophy Offerings 

City Tech participates in a CUNY-wide Open Educational Resource initiative designed to make course materials open and free to students and to propagate open or freely-accessible curriculum in general. I obtained OER Fellowships to convert four of our core offerings into OER versions (PHIL 2103, PHIL 2203, PHIL 2203ID, and PHIL 3211). Because my work is copyrighted under a Creative Commons License and is freely available online, these OER versions can be cloned, copied, or otherwise remixed by subsequent faculty (at City Tech or anywhere) as best meets their needs. 

I am currently developing an OER version of Environmental Philosophy (PHIL 3400). I hope to offer it for the first time in the 2025-6 academic year. 

Department and College Member

Philosophy at City Tech is a discipline housed in the Department of Social Sciences. Social Sciences is responsible for a large part of the General Education curriculum and also offers courses required for selected degree programs. Our status as primarily a “service department” means that my teaching responsibilities are designed around serving students and faculty in other programs. Two of the ways that I serve the department and college are in my efforts to make philosophy part of a broader interdisciplinary effort at the College and in my efforts to assist in college-wide curriculum development. 

Interdisciplinary Education

Lectures

In addition to offering my own interdisciplinary sections, I also offer numerous guest lectures in other interdisciplinary courses. Below are some offerings from the last 5 years, many of which have been offered multiple times.  

1. “Stigma, Obesity, and Libertarian Paternalism,” guest lecture for interdisciplinary course Behavioral Economics (ECON 2820ID) for Prof. Bayaz-Ozturk
2. “Marxist Philosophy,” guest lecture for interdisciplinary course, The United States and the Global Cold War (HIS 3402ID) for Prof. Kyle Cuordileone
3. “Ethics of Monuments in Public Spaces,” guest lecture for interdisciplinary course, “Learning Places: Understanding the City, LIB2205/ARCH2205 for Prof. Amanda Almond.
4. “The Use of Race in Federal Research Categories,” guest lecture for interdisciplinary course Health Psychology (PSY 3405ID) for Prof. Almond
5. “Health Justice,” guest lecture for Health Psychology (PSY 3405ID) for Prof. Amanda Almond 
6. Group Panel participant on COVID pandemic for Health Psychology (PSY 3405ID) for Prof. Amanda Almond 
7. “Libertarian Paternalism and Stigmatizing Obesity,” guest lecture for Health Communication (COM 2403ID), Prof. David Lee
8. “Facts and Opinions in the Common Core Curriculum,” guest lecture for Sociology of Education (SOC 2380ID), Prof. Judith Sedaitis
9. “Climate Change, Health, and Justice,” guest lecture for Environmental Sociology (SOC 3302ID) for Prof. Diana Mincyte
10. “History and philosophy of the definition of death,” guest lecture for History of Technology (HIS 3209ID), for Prof. Geoff Zylstra.
11. “Environmental duties not to procreate?” Guest lecture for Environmental Sociology (SOC 3302ID) for Prof. Diana Mincyte
12. “Autonomy and laws governing informed consent,” guest lecture for Health Communication (COM 2403ID), Prof. David Lee

Mentoring

A group of City Tech nursing students, led by Professor Merlyn Dorsainvil, volunteered for the Department of Nursing’s first international clinical to Haiti in January 2020. Professor Dorsainvil invited me to be an interdisciplinary participant and commentator in the OpenLab journal blog [gated] kept by the students during their trip. I posted significant interactions [gated] with each student and responded to their questions and concerns. I also helped to put some of the issues they faced, and scenes they observed, in a broader ethical context

Curriculum Committee

From September 2019 until May 2021 I served as a non-voting member on the College Curriculum Commitee. During this time I served on subcommittees assigned to review applications for new courses and gave feedback to proposers.