Forrest Baird (1978-present) professor of philosophy
Greetings! This past year we were privileged to have Matthew Roberts join us as a visiting professor. Matt did a great job. He will heading off to Patrick Henry College outside DC. We wish him all the best! For this next year we look forward to welcoming Chad Carmichael, who is finishing his Ph.D. at Stanford in metaphysics. Chad will be teaching a full range of classes for us. During the coming year we will have a search for a permanent replacement.

This past year I got to teach C.S. Lewis, Senior Seminar, Philosophy of Religion, Asian Philosophy, and Core 250. During Jan Term I again took a group of 18 students across Europe for Core 250. We started in Athens and ended in London, with stops in Rome, Florence, and Paris. Over Spring Break I took 48 students to China for Asian Philosophy. We spent most of the time in Beijing, but also managed to visit Shandong Province to see Confucius' hometown and climb the sacred Mount Tai. Both trips were exhausting and exhilarating -- and the students were great. Amazingly enough, I have no trips planned for the summer -- or for next year! It will be a bit of a change to stay close to home, but I am looking forward to getting some writing done.

Speaking of writing, the fifth edition of my Philosophic Classics series was published this year. In addition to some minor "tweaking" of three of the volumes, I added Renaissance philosophy to the Medieval and Renaissance philosophy tome. It was a lot of work, but was also very rewarding. My dear colleague Keith Wyma and our former colleague Rebekah Rice gave me some really good suggestions. Next spring I have a sabbatical coming and hope to do some writing in philosophy of religion.

Joy is finishing up a difficult year teaching first grade in the Spokane public school system. The highlight for her this year was getting another great Whitworth student as a student-teacher. Our children continue to do well. Whitney is still working as a librarian in Colville and living on a 20-acre farm with her dear husband, Elliott. Sydney is teaching drama, history, and English at Nathan Hale High School, in Seattle, and living in the Ravenna area with her dear husband, Jeff. Soren spent the year in Spokane working at J.C. Penney, and, after working in Kenya for the summer, will be heading to graduate school in California next fall.

This is the end of my 30th year at Whitworth (of course, I started when I was 9 years old!).  It is true that as one gets older, the years seem to move more quickly. The two constants through all these years have been the goodness of God and the joy of teaching. It is such a privilege to be at Whitworth and to have such outstanding students. Please let us know how you are doing. We love to hear from you!