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Ethan Mills, assistant professor of philosophy and religion at UTC, has been elected as the president of the Tennessee Philosophical Association for 2020.<\/p>\nEthan Mills, assistant professor of philosophy and religion at UTC, has been elected as the president of the Tennessee Philosophical Association for 2020.<\/p>\n
Mills says he was nominated at the association\u2019s business meeting earlier this year, so his selection at the annual conference a few weeks ago wasn\u2019t a complete shock.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was prepared, but nonetheless extremely honored to be nominated and then elected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brian Ribeiro, UC Foundation professor of philosophy and former president of the TPA, says Mills\u2019 election as the organization\u2019s president is \u201ca great honor.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am sure he will do an excellent job handling all aspects of the next TPA meeting in 2020,” Ribeiro says.<\/p>\n
The TPA was formed in 1969 and, when he served as TPA president in 2014, Ribeiro notes that he was the first person from UTC to ever hold the position, making Mills the second person from UTC to be president.<\/p>\n
One of his main responsibilities as president, Mills says, is to help plan the annual TPA conference for 2020, which takes place in late October or early November at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis entails setting the dates, inviting a keynote (speaker), reading all the submissions, deciding which papers to accept and working with Vanderbilt faculty, staff and graduate students to handle the on-the-ground aspects of the conference,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Along with those jobs, his personal goal is to find a keynote speaker who is an expert in non-Western philosophy, \u201cfor example, in Asian, African, or Native American philosophical traditions,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also hope to attract some new attendees to the TPA to interact with the \u2018usual suspects\u2019 who attend every year, while at the same time fostering the statewide community of philosophers in Tennessee,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe TPA\u2019s main goal is to create a community of philosophers from across Tennessee. I\u2019m glad to be part of this community, and I look forward to doing my part to maintain it and maybe even expand it in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ethan Mills selected as 2020 president of the Tennessee Philosophical Association.<\/p>\n