SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY
Cape Girardeau, Missouri 63701
(314) 651-2000

Enclosed is an announcement of a tenure-track position in philosophy at the
rank of assistant professor.  We hope to fill this position rapidly; the
target date for our final decision is June 13.  We are more interested in
looking at candidates with real teaching experience than in newly minted
Ph.D's, who might have unrealistic expectations about the possibilities for
academic growth at an institution such as ours.  Southeast Missouri State
University is a regional university which serves students in the southeast
portion of the state including St. Louis.  Our students tend to be poorly
prepared for college level work, intellectually passive, interested
primarily in partying, and culturally provincial in the extreme.  We offer
a major in philosophy. but do not usually have more than two students
officially declared as majors at any given time.

There are a few good students, however, and we are proud to say that our
current graduating major, William Knorpp, won the 1985 Analysis competition
and will be undertaking graduate study in philosophy at the University of
North Carolina Chapel Hill next year.  Mr. Knorpp 's upper level work was
mainly accomplished through independent tutorials; and pros-pective
candidate must understand that there will be virtually no opportunity to
teach upper-division seminars in philosophy.  We also offer a religious
studies minor; most of the students who declare this minor are shocked to
learn that Moses might not have written the Pentateuch and regard higher
criticism as secular humanist propaganda.  The 12 hrs/semester teaching
load is devoted mainly to general education courses at the
freshman/sophomore level. In another five years, if the general education
curriculum is revised as promised, there may be seminars which are to
"capstone' the G.E. program.

The academic environment at SEMO is distinctly non-intellectual-somewhat
like a Norman Rockwell painting--and the candidate cannot expect to attract
students by offering courses that assume innate curiosity about ideas and
books, or intellectual playfulness, or independence of moral and political
thought.  Nevertheless. in order to earn promotion and tenure it is
necessary to be involved in curriculum development and to sustain an
interest in research and publication.  It has occurred to me that the best
candidate would be some-one who has held the Ph.D. for more than two years,
has taught at a community college or a rural state institution, and who
would like to continue in some-what the same vein but at a slightly higher
level.I will be interviewing at the Central Division Meetings in St. Louis.
If you have an questions, you may call me at my office (314-651-2186).
Sincerely, Dennis Holt, Chairman, Department of Philosophy