3-27-08

Media Release

Professor Elected to Orion Society

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Oregon State University philosophy professor Kathleen Dean Moore has been elected to the board of directors of the Orion Society, publishers of Orion magazine.

The Orion Society is an influential forum for re-imagining humanity's relationship to nature, culture, and place. Orion magazine, which has been called "America's finest environmental magazine" by the Boston Globe, features many of America's foremost writers and artists.

Moore is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at OSU, where she is the founding director of the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word. Her work is in the areas of environmental ethics and philosophy and nature, where she has published three award-winning books of essays: “The Pine Island Paradox” (Milkweed Editions, 2004); “Holdfast: At Home in the Natural World” (Lyons Press, 1999, 2004); and “Riverwalking: Reflections on Moving Water” (Harcourt Brace, 1996). She is co-editor of a forthcoming collection of articles about Rachel Carson's legacy and challenge and the co-editor of “How It Is: A Native American Philosophy,” the collected papers of the late Viola Cordova.

Moore’s Ph.D., from the University of Colorado, is in the philosophy of law, where her particular interest is in the nature of forgiveness and reconciliation. Her book, “Pardons: Justice, Mercy, and the Public Interest” (Oxford University Press, 1989, 1997) outlines a justice-based argument for pardons.

Long interested in innovative teaching, Moore has been selected as a “Master Teacher” in the College of Liberal Arts, and has received the highest teaching honor bestowed by alumni, the OSU Alumni Distinguished Professor Award.

She is the author of two textbooks that connect the skills of critical thinking and effective writing, “Reasoning and Writing” and “Patterns of Inductive Reasoning: Developing Critical Thinking Skills.”