NIC students to present at international conference

Four North Idaho College students were chosen to present their papers at the 20th annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference at Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore.

Dawson Williams, Adrian White, Jeremiah Serrell, and Mason Brown, all from Coeur d’Alene, will be presenting papers on a variety of philosophical topics on April 15-16. Since 1997, more than 1,300 students from 300 schools have participated in the Pacific University conference.

“This is the largest and most competitive undergraduate philosophy conference in the country. It attracts entries from all 50 states as well as from Canada and the United Kingdom. This is a great honor for these outstanding NIC students, since the conference organizers must turn down many submissions,” said Ed Kaitz, NIC philosophy instructor. “Those who wonder about the practicality of a philosophy degree should know that beyond the field’s solid preparation in the history of political, moral, and religious thought, and beyond its deep investigations into human nature and knowledge, the discipline produces excellent scholars and productive citizens in just about every endeavor.”

Kaitz said philosophy majors typically outscore every other major, including those in the hard sciences, on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), which ranks students who are interested in attending graduate school in the humanities and social sciences. Philosophy majors also are tied for No. 1 with economics majors on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT), and are behind only physics and math majors on the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), which is the exam needed to attend graduate school in business.

In addition to the four current NIC students, recent NIC graduates Samantha Lowman and Dave McKerracher, who are now both at Boise State University, and Loni Tabor and Braden Agueros, who are currently studying at Eastern Washington University, will also present papers at the conference. Katherine Nichols, a former dual-enrolled student at NIC who is now a senior at Portland State, will present a paper at the conference.

“NIC will be the home (or former home) of probably the largest contingent of scholars who will be presenting at this major international undergraduate conference,” Kaitz said. “NIC, the local community, and the participants’ families should all be congratulated for helping to cultivate this great example of academic excellence.”