Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.—A Mississippi State faculty member with more than a decade of experience at the university is the new head of the Department of Philosophy and Religion.
Officially beginning his administrative position July 1, Associate Professor of Philosophy J. Robert Thompson said he looks forward to the leadership role, which will allow him to “highlight the skills and understanding philosophy and religion bring to society.”
“Information is easy to come by these days. Knowing how to analyze information—wherever it originates—is the essential skill of the future,” said Thompson, who joined MSU’s faculty in 2008. “The research we produce spans disciplines and college boundaries.”
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Rick Travis said Thompson’s history of service on committees such as the college and university faculty senates, as well as his experience as the department’s undergraduate program coordinator for philosophy have equipped him for the department head role.
“Robert has already demonstrated exceptional leadership skill. He served as the acting head of the department in 2018 when he led the department through its five-year review process,” Travis said. “He is a determined person who understands what service leadership means.”
Thompson said philosophers approach problems from important perspectives. “We have a diverse and gifted faculty that have accomplished amazing things, and I want to help them secure the support and resources to accomplish even more.”
The Corpus Christi, Texas, native specializes in philosophical puzzles that arise from studying how thought and language work. He teaches courses in logic and philosophical puzzles in the cognitive sciences.
“Specifically, I study how children learn to understand what other people are thinking about and how they communicate about it,” Thompson said. “Children go from not understanding these central human activities to understanding them, and I want to know how and when this change occurs.”
Thompson earned his 2004 Ph.D. and 1999 master’s degree in philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His 1997 bachelor’s degree in philosophy is from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.
He holds professional affiliations with the American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. He is secretary of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology, a group which facilitates the exchange of ideas and fosters the educational function of philosophy and psychology, while seeking to improve the academic status of these subjects. He also has served as president and vice president of the Mississippi Philosophical Association.
At MSU, Thompson has been a faculty senator in the university’s Robert Holland Faculty Senate, chair of his department’s promotion and tenure committee, and as a member of the department curriculum committee, university Phi Beta Kappa committee, Council of Advisors for Society of Scholars, and Honor Code Council.
In 2015, Thompson was selected as MSU’s Humanities Teacher of the Year by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Mississippi Humanities Council. He also was a College of Arts and Sciences researcher of the month in 2014 and received the MSU State Pride award in 2010.
MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences includes more than 5,300 students, 300 full-time faculty members, nine doctoral programs and 25 academic majors offered in 14 departments. Complete details about the College of Arts and Sciences or the Department of Philosophy and Religion may be found at www.cas.msstate.edu or www.philosophyandreligion.msstate.edu.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.