Philosophy professor earns President’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service

Dedication to students, SUNY Oswego's academic opportunities and his field as a whole has earned philosophy professor Craig DeLancey the college’s President’s Award for Excellence in Faculty Service. 

The award recognizes outstanding and exemplary efforts in promoting excellence at the college, service philosophy, and leadership and involvement on and off campus. President Deborah F. Stanley presented the award Aug. 21 at the college's annual Academic Affairs Retreat.

His lead nominator, philosophy department chair Jean Chambers, credited DeLancey for developing and advocating for the college’s new interdisciplinary philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) major, one of fewer than 40 such programs in the United States and a hallmark for such global institutions as Yale, Notre Dame and Oxford universities.

“Ours is the only such program at a SUNY comprehensive university,” Chambers wrote. “The new PPE major is extremely promising for pre-law students and anyone interested in government service. It is a significant achievement to develop and get state approval for a new interdisciplinary major.”

The major -- with tracks in philosophy and politics, philosophy and economics, and political economics -- underscores the college’s understanding that academic fields can span boundaries and labels in providing a high-quality education and preparing students for the future. “Philosophers love interdisciplinary work. We are committed to it,” DeLancey said when the new major launched, adding that the “fantastic” relationship among the departments made this notable offering possible.

DeLancey “has assembled an impressive record of service at the department, college, university and professional levels, and clearly excels in what one recommender refers to as 'service to scholarly excellence,'" Elizabeth Dunne-Schmitt, chair of the college’s Faculty Assembly, noted in telling the governance group about the award. "He is also the author of an OER (open educational resource) text, ‘A Concise Introduction to Logic.’ Since 2017 this text has over 17,000 downloads under a Creative Commons license, helping to ensure that students have access to materials they need to succeed."

DeLancey is working on an additional Open SUNY textbook for introduction to philosophy which will further support “access to free high-quality textbooks” for this field, Chambers noted.

Chambers also credited DeLancey for strong leadership of the philosophy department for more than a half decade, as well as co-directing the college’s interdisciplinary philosophy-psychology major for a dozen years.

DeLancey also has served as an external reviewer for philosophy programs at Indiana University South Bend and William Paterson University, which is “just one demonstration of his dedication to the improvement of philosophy education,” Chambers wrote. In addition to his own numerous publications, that dedication also extends into refereeing various philosophy journals and supervising doctoral theses for other institutions, she added.

DeLancey earned his doctorate in cognitive science from the Indiana University philosophy department, a master’s in computer service from Indiana University and dual bachelor’s degrees in anthropology and in English from the University of Rochester.

Letters of support from colleagues at SUNY Oswego as well as from other institutions underscored DeLancey’s value to the institution, the field of philosophy and higher education in general.

“In all of his service work, Craig has gone above and beyond what was required, showing a true dedication to the service mission of the university and SUNY in general,” Chambers wrote.