{"id":169,"date":"2014-11-20T15:28:01","date_gmt":"2014-11-20T15:28:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/?p=169"},"modified":"2014-11-20T20:21:54","modified_gmt":"2014-11-20T20:21:54","slug":"get-to-know-chris-calvert-minor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/2014\/11\/20\/get-to-know-chris-calvert-minor\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to know Chris Calvert-Minor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CCM\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chris Calvert-Minor is a Philosophy Professor in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u2019s your educational background?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been in school forever. I did a Bachelor\u2019s of Science in Chemistry at the University of Illinois \u2013 Champaign. Then I went into a PhD program in Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. Midway through I realized I didn\u2019t have a passion for chemistry – the labs were really boring. I liked the work, but there\u2019s not many people to talk to in labs. There wasn\u2019t enough interaction. I ended up getting out of Chemistry with my Master\u2019s. I started working in a Chemistry lab with the Master\u2019s, but I was really interested in Philosophy and Theology. I got my Master\u2019s in Theology, but then I realized that wasn\u2019t the field I really wanted to go in. Then I went into Philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

What courses do you teach?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Introduction to Philosophy, Truth in the Media, 20th<\/sup>\u00a0Century Philosophy, Existentialism, Philosophy of Science, and Knowledge of Reality.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are your research Interests?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Various. I am trained to do knowledge and rationality. I usually work on rationality, objectivity, and those kinds of things. However, I\u2019ve been working on aspects of consciousness lately. It is fascinating stuff.<\/span><\/p>\n

How long have you been teaching?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I started teaching my own courses in 2005 at Syracuse University, then Hamilton College, and then here. I\u2019ve taught chemistry before, I\u2019ve taught Greek before, so I\u2019ve been teaching for a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n

What inspired you to become a professor?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I love teaching. I\u2019m lucky – I get paid to do what I love. I have fun doing it. In Intro to Philosophy students are usually seeing this strange stuff for the first time and it is pretty exciting to be a part of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite\u00a0thing about teaching?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I love it when we have great discussions – when it\u2019s not a \u201cme\u201d thing, it\u2019s a \u201cwe\u201d thing. I hate just standing up there and being a talking head.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you like most about UW-Whitewater?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a big school, it\u2019s not a small school.\u00a0 It\u2019s just right. I used to teach at Hamilton College – there\u2019s 2,000 students there. It\u2019s like high school where everyone knows you.\u00a0 I kind of like having a little anonymity. You can get that here a little bit, but it\u2019s not so big that you don\u2019t get to know some people. UW-Whitewater is in that sweet spot.<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite movie?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Fight Club, Donnie Darco, The Nightmare before Christmas, for sure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Who inspires you and why?<\/i><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The students. I like my research; it\u2019s fun, but it doesn\u2019t matter as much as the students. I like to somehow think that maybe some of the stuff I write will become well known, but there\u2019s a one in billion chance that that would actually happen. So it\u2019s hard for me to justify my existence through what I write, even though I love it. But every semester I get 140 students and my job is to teach them to think a little bit better. That is meaningful.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Chris Calvert-Minor is a Philosophy Professor in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department.     What\u2019s your educational background? I\u2019ve been in school forever. I did a Bachelor\u2019s of Science in Chemistry at the University of Illinois \u2013 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2077,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169\/revisions\/173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uww.edu\/uwwcols\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}