The Students Surpass The Teachers

This spring, 7 Philosophy majors, 16 minors, 16 Ethics Certificate students, and 4 Health Care Ethics MA students crossed the KFC Yum! Center stage to receive their diplomas. Three Philosophy majors completed honors theses, graduating with highest distinction and summa cum laude. 

But numbers don’t even begin to tell the story of our amazing students. The Philosophy Club and Phi Sigma Tau were active this year, hosting events and gathering for philosophical exchange. Philosophy major Tuesday Shaw was honored with the Woodcock Medal, the most prestigious award conferred by the faculty of the College of Arts & Sciences. He is on his way to Moldova with the support of a Boren Scholarship. In the meantime, he carried the College banner at graduation. Philosophy minor Dammy Jeboda won a Fulbright Research Award to Switzerland, and alums Ryan Apperson ’24 – who recently returned from a Boren Scholarship year in Turkey – and Omar Arar ’23 are Fulbright Alternates.  

Our graduating class was so strong overall that we named three winners of the Richard Barber award – Megan Crowley, Elijah Deters, and Tuesday Shaw – alongside Richard Campbell Smith award winner Andrew Heggie. As for MA students, Wala Al Zara earned the Outstanding Graduating Student recognition and also received the Alice Eaves Barnes award from the Graduate School, and Marissa Smith received the Osborne Wiggins Book Prize. This year, the book was Maeve McKeown’s study of structural injustice, With Power Comes Responsibility. As a Soaring Scholar, Smith, a 2024 BA graduate, was able to complete the MA in just one additional year. 

In addition to these awards for graduating students, the Philosophy Department awards the Thomas S. Maloney Scholarship to continuing students who are Kentucky-resident Philosophy majors with financial need, with the goal of helping them surmount financial barriers to the degree. We were excited to award three Maloney scholarships this past year, and to be able to award another three for 2025-26. At the graduate level, the Department this year welcomed our first cohort of Paul D. Simmons Ethical Leadership Scholars. These are highly promising students in our MA program in Health Care Ethics. Two Simmons Scholars – Marissa Smith and Wala Al Zara – graduated this spring, while a third, Cishella Durling ’26 MA, continues her studies this fall, and two new students – Lane Scott and Steve Muir – join her in the second cohort of Simmons scholars. Unlike the Barber and Smith awards, the Maloney and Simmons Scholarships are not endowed, which means that their continued existence depends on annual giving. If you would like to support the next crop of Maloney Scholars, please click here; if you would like to support the Simmons Ethical Leadership scholarship, please click here.