Links on the left menu list ASPECT faculty (core and affiliate), graduate students, alumni, and staff.
The primary role of an ASPECT faculty member is to serve as a potential mentor for ASPECT doctoral students. ASPECT faculty members mentor ASPECT students by serving as Major Advisors, by sitting on ASPECT students’ dissertation committees, by offering theoretically innovative, interdisciplinary, and critically engaged graduate seminars, by advising students about courses, research, and career plans, and by introducing their own research to the ASPECT student body, ASPECT faculty colleagues, and the Virginia Tech community. ASPECT faculty members are dedicated teachers and scholars who are active participants in the ASPECT program and its thriving intellectual life. ASPECT faculty members share a strong interest in interdisciplinary knowledge and are eager to bring theoretical perspectives to bear on a variety of social, political, ethical, and cultural issues.
The vast majority of ASPECT faculty members are affiliates. As of August 2012, ASPECT features over 70 faculty affiliates from across Virginia Tech, primarily. They have been invited to join ASPECT’s community of faculty affiliates by the ASPECT program Director. ASPECT does not have the capacity to offer affiliated faculty (or any other faculty member) tenured or untenured, long-term or short-term positions.
A few faculty members among ASPECT’s affiliates are also Core ASPECT faculty. Core ASPECT faculty members are from one of ASPECT’s Core Departments (History, Philosophy, Political Science, and Religion and Culture) within the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences or from the SPIA program in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies (another core partner of ASPECT). Core ASPECT faculty members were recruited jointly by ASPECT and their “home” department specifically to create and offer a range of graduate courses that would contribute to ASPECT’s program and mission. Core ASPECT faculty also assist the program Director with general curricular issues and a few other administrative matters. Similar to ASPECT’s affiliated faculty members, Core ASPECT faculty are not tenured in ASPECT.
As of Fall 2012, ASPECT’s Core faculty members are: François Debrix (ASPECT Director, Professor of Political Science); Danna Agmon (ASPECT; Assistant Professor of History); Bettina Koch (ASPECT; Associate Professor of Political Science); Chad Lavin (ASPECT; Associate Professor of Political Science); Michael Moehler (ASPECT; Assistant Professor of Philosophy); Madhavi Murty (ASPECT; Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture); Patricia Nickel (ASPECT; Assistant Professor in Government and International Affairs); Rachel Scott (ASPECT; Associate Professor of Religion and Culture); and Brett Shadle (ASPECT; Associate Professor of History).