News 21 Nov 2006 12:18 pm
Students participate in conference
By Chris Falzarano
Advertising Director
Four Canisius students attended a national philosophy conference at Fairfield University at the end of last month. Kyle Walker (’06), Lauren Woomer (’07), Kristen Lovejoy (graduate student) and William D’Alessandro (’06) were selected for the panel to represent the College.
The selection process involved a class of fourteen students each submitting a paper, all related to feminism in contemporary culture. The four best were chosen to go to the conference.
The conference, entitled “Reflecting on the Jesuit Goal of Justice: Feminist Liberation at Home and/or at Work,” was attended by representatives from Jesuit institutions from all around the nation. The topics covered mostly involved Jesuit traditional beliefs and basic feminist ideas.
The Jesuit ideal states that all humans should use their talents to enhance human progress. According to this idea, women could not only contribute to society, but should take the initiative to do so. From these basic platforms, long and heated debates arose between panels.
This was not just a student conference. The competing teams, for the most part, consisted of college professors. The Canisius panel was the only team consisting solely of students. Although not as experienced as their competitors, the foursome was able to hold their own against tough competition and in one case Philosophy Professor Tanya Loughead said the Canisius panel brought up such a heated topic that their competitors’ faces grew red with anger.
Many of their competitors approached them afterwards commenting on the quality of their arguments, stating how shocked they were that they were all students. Lovejoy noted, “Many thought we were young faculty and didn’t believe we wrote these [papers] as undergrads.”
Loughead believes that the students positively represented Canisius as a whole and that they left a strong impression of the College at the conference. The students noticed that many of the professors from other schools had never heard of Canisius and did not know where it was located. They felt that afterwards, many knew and respected Canisius because of their performance.
Walker said, “I believe we were able to represent the Canisius Philosophy department as one which pushes the boundaries of thought,” and D’Alessandro added, “We represented ourselves strongly as an original thinking, rigorous and intellectually strong school.”
Loughead feels, “It’s nice to know that the philosophy students at Canisius College are willing and able to participate in rigorous and contemporary philosophical debates.”
Woomer commented, “I am glad we were given the opportunity to attend this conference and enter into this important free exchange of ideas, which is essential to education.”