Arizona Recap

I've actually been back from Tucson since Tuesday, but things have been crazy busy around here, so I haven't had a chance to write about the trip until now. The visit was very good. The philosophy dept seems like a very cooperative and stimulating working environment; grad students and faculty interact as colleagues, not as teachers and students. Students and faculty alike were very warm and accommodating. The people who do political philosophy as their primary research area--Tom Christiano and Dave Schmidtz--are doing work that is right in line with my own interests, and both received rave reviews as advisors from students. Arizona has also recently hired two new political philosophers--Jerry Gaus and Connie Rosati--which greatly increases their strength in political philosophy. Before these hires, UA was widely regarded as one of the top 5 places to study political philosophy; after these hires, it may well be the best place to do so. Certainly, I would have numerous faculty to work with, and there is a good size group of students studying political philosophy as well.

My one concern with UA has always been the funding offer. Not that it was bad; it's just that I have better offers. And I'm not even talking about absolute dollar amount. Arizona is offering $14 600/academic year (9 months) + the opportunity for summer teaching (and funding). This is livable in Tucson. My bigger concern was the lack of non-teaching fellowship years, which I have been offered at UIC and would be offered at Michigan and UNC if admission comes through. Basically, the advantage of fellowship years is that I would have time off of teaching to get my own research done and hopefully publish a few articles before hitting the job market. Well, I negotiated my way to at least two terms without teaching at UA--Dave Schmidtz is offering me a Kendrick Fellowship for one term of my first year and Tom Christiano has told me that he would hire me as a research assistant at some time after my first year, which basically means he would hire me to read and discuss articles with him. Since him and I are interested in similar questions, he would be paying me to do research I am interested in. Also, both Dave and Tom have been successful in helping their students win external fellowships while at Arizona, so this is a good prospect as well. In any case, the funding situation is much improved at Arizona, although still not as good as the other places.

Tucson was kinda cool. The city is actually a 3/4 million person suburb, so it's really spread out (not cool). But, it is surrounded my mountains (beautiful!) and it's a quick drive to get out to there for a hike. I did a hike while there and it was awesome--the desert landscape was definitely unique! One unusual thing about Tucson (at least, unusual to me) was the lack of grass on people's yards--everything was basically sand. Anyway, Tucson is definitely livable--although a little far from home :(

I'm off for my final trip on Wed.--to Michigan, then NYC, then Chapel Hill. I'll return Apr. 5.