Nova PhDs

A forum for grads of Villanova's Philosophy PhD program

Shaw Defends Successfully
Hi folks:

A quick report that I just attended Mike Shaw's dissertation defense. As you know, I tend to be hypercritical, so please take me quite seriously when I say it was by far the best one I've ever seen (all due respect to all of us). Mike offered a project that was ridiculously well researched, evidenced an encyclopedic knowledge of the Aristotelian corpus (in Greek), and was nothing short of amazing. I know several of us were disappointed by our own experiences with the PhD defense for one reason or another. Mike's conversation with his committee was, at least for me, what I would have hoped for in my best dreams. Mike encountered significant difficulties in his journey to completing the PhD today. He has more than earned the letters behind his name. We can all be quite proud to be associated with him. Well done, Mike!
Posted by Timothy Kirk on Thursday December 15, 2005 at 7:12pm
Ammon Allred:
I agree wholeheartedly with Tim. The presentation was interesting. The discussion was very substantial, and Mike did a great job of responding to some detailed, substantive questions. Congratulations.
12.15.2005 7:37pm
John Whitmire:
wow, great job DR. mike! sounds like it went amazingly. i'm glad that this part of the process went so well for you, after some of the difficulties and adversity you were able to overcome.

by the way, that's 3 PhD's this fall, and a total of 21 overall, out of whom we've got 11 posting here on the blog.
12.17.2005 8:25am
Farhang Erfani (mail):
Emily and I were supposed to make it for Dr. Shaw's defense but the weather did not let us drive up on Thursday. We left first thing on Friday morning, hoping to catch the new Dr. but he was not around. Very disappointed but I heard great things about his defense too.

This is great news. Most sincere congratulations to Dr. Shaw.
12.17.2005 9:12am
Chris Diehm (mail):
does mike have access to this site? if not we should definitely get notice to him that he has received top honors from the oh-so-hard-to-impress dr. timothy kirk, and the not-so-hard-to-impress- but-oh-so-hard-to-fathom-the-true-depths-of dr. ammon allred. to those of you who don't remember, early on in our association with mike i came up with the infamous "did you eat my cole slaw?" joke, which no doubt changed the course of mike's academic careeer—and life more generally—for the better. i know everyone will agree, and those of you who don't know what i'm talking about, i have no doubt your life is diminished because of it.
12.19.2005 10:15pm
J.C. Berendzen:
I feel my life is diminished because I know all too well what you are talking about...
12.20.2005 3:39pm