Department News

David Gray's course, PHI 485 Integrating PPE, challenges students to find a way to concretely make a social improvement, and then do it. For the Spring 2023 Edition, students organized into three teams: Team Traffic Cones is collecting items that will populate a reading room in the women’s shelter at the Buffalo City Mission; Team Gift of Thrift is collecting lightly used items from students’ dorms as the inventory for pop-up sales, with proceeds going to charity; and, Team Buffalo Soup is orchestrating a crowdfunding event to raise support for local non-profit organizations. Read news story by Bert Gambini.

In conjunction with National Honesty Day, UB's Office of Academic Integrity recognized David E. Gray as one of five individuals who promoted a culture of integrity at UB during the 2022-2023 academic year. The award cites Dr. Gray's proactive approach to ensuring academic integrity in his classes through clear communication of expectations, Honor Agreements, and the use of “philosopher’s stones” when students need coursework extensions. He approaches policy violations in a compassionate and educational manner, always with an eye on character development for the student. Dr. Gray’s PHI 485 course challenges students to “make the world a better place”. Read more.

The Department of Philosophy is pleased to announce that three graduate students have been selected as Social Impact Fellows for Summer 2023. Botan Dolun, Katrina Johnson, and Noah Kim are among ten graduate students selected for this program. They’ll each receive a $5,000 stipend and spend the summer interning with a local, Buffalo non-profit organization. Learn more about the program.

When the student team in the PPE course, PHI 485, identified a need for places to read inside the Buffalo City Mission, they proceeded to develop three areas, and built bookshelves for over 1,000 donated books for the residents. Their capstone project is the subject of an article by Charles Anzalone, UB News.

The philosophical legacy of Jiyuan Yu is examined in two new books. Published in 2023, both books are written in Chinese. The first, Between Ancient and Modern China and the West: Academic Anthology of Jiyuan Yu, is a collection of his important articles and of responses by other scholars. The second, Lecture on Aristotle's Metaphysics, contains a series of lectures delivered in 2011 by Professor Yu at Shandong University that were later compiled by Professor Yu’s doctoral students.

PHI 485, Integrating PPE, is a course that challenges students to find a way to concretely make a social improvement, and then do it. One team accomplished that with BUFFALO SOUP. Their professor, Dr. David Gray, designed the philosophy course. He states, “I am really proud of our PPE students who continue working on their capstone project from Spring 2023, transforming Buffalo Soup into a regular Buffalo institution that is now bringing in partners from other colleges at UB.” BUFFALO SOUP is now apart of a micro-funding group. Read news story by David J. Hill.