105 people received the PhD in Philosophy from UMass between 1988 and the present. Of these, we think we have reasonably good information concerning 90. While we doubt that the others are currently teaching philosophy, we aren’t sure. In many cases we don’t know whether the individuals in question made a serious, sustained effort to find academic work. Since we don’t know what happened to these people, we have chosen to leave their names off the list. If anyone has information concerning any of these people, we hope they will share it with us.

Of the 90 about whom we think we have good information, quite a few either are currently teaching philosophy in a college or university, or formerly were teaching philosophy but have now retired or otherwise moved on. Some of those who are now teaching are tenured; others are in tenure-track jobs; others currently hold post doctoral fellowships; others are working as adjuncts. If we also include people who have found positions as academic administrators or the like, we can say that 78 of the 90 found work in philosophy (or academic administration). Our placement rate thus calculated is 86%.

Ten of the people who got PhDs in this period and about whom we have information did not aggressively seek work as teachers of philosophy. Some already had other career ambitions. Some went to law school. Some just decided to do something else. If we exclude these people from our calculations, then we can say that there are 80 graduates who aggressively (and in some cases persistently) sought employment in philosophy, and about whom we have information. Of these, 78 got jobs in philosophy (or academic administration). Our placement rate thus calculated is 97.5%.

The list that follows contains the names of the 78 people who got jobs in philosophy during this period. It also contains the names of two people who went directly to law school after receiving the PhD.

We have a longer document that contains information about every person who ever got a PhD in Philosophy at UMass. That list contains 169 names and goes back to 1952. Anyone interested in seeing that document may request a copy from the Department Administrative Assistant.

We recognize that there are gaps in our information. We also suspect that some of the information included here may turn out to be misinformation. We apologize for any errors. We hope that anyone having better information will share it with us.