Dr. Seamus Mulryan studied physics at a small liberal arts college much like Ursinus before volunteering for two years of national service in AmeriCorps as a physics teacher with Teach for America. Over the years, he initiated a successful AP-Physics program in one of the poorest counties the country, developed the physics curriculum for a new suburban public school, and led an after-school program in an urban school. During this time, his attention slowly turned from the big questions about the physical universe to the big questions about education, and these led him to earn his Ph.D. in educational policy studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Mulryan joined the Ursinus College faculty in 2015, because he felt a strong affinity with the Common Intellectual Experience (CIE) program for first-year students; with the Education Department’s unique approach to teacher education, which grounds itself in a rigorous liberal education; and because of the small class sizes and close intellectual relationships he could have with students.

Dr. Mulryan offers courses that both advance the larger core curriculum at the College, Quest, and that allow students to pursue the study of education for its own sake. His classroom teaching is seminar-style and discussion-based. In this environment, and through independent research and honors projects, he invites his students into the millennia-old conversation about enduring educational questions, encouraging his students to not only consider the public good of educational opportunity but also to use these questions as a means of pursuing their own continual formation.

Dr. Mulryan’s scholarship draws from the fields of ethics, politics, and hermeneutics to help answer questions regarding how, why, and to what ends individuals undergo an education. His work has been published inEducational Theory,Philosophy of Education,Journal of Aesthetic Education, and Policy Futures in Education; and it has been cited in the American Educational Research Association’s Handbook of Research in Teaching, as well as in monographs, journal articles, theses, and dissertations across multiple continents. His most recent work includes a forthcoming article in Educational Theory titled “Ethical Diversity, the Common Good, and the Courage of Dialogue” as well as a chapter in the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Ethics and Education titled “The Ethics of Bildung and Liberal Education.”