Robert J. Nash

Robert J. Nash has been a professor in the College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Burlington, for 37 years. He specializes in philosophy of education, ethics, higher education, and religion, spirituality, and education. He holds graduate degrees in English, Theology/Religious Studies, Applied Ethics and Liberal Studies, and Educational Philosophy. He holds faculty appointments in teacher education, higher education administration, and interdisciplinary studies in education. He administers the Interdisciplinary Master’s Program, and he teaches ethics, religion, higher education, and philosophy of education courses, as well as scholarly personal narrative writing seminars, across four programs in the college, including the doctoral program in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. He has supervised over 100 theses and dissertations.

He has published more than 100 articles, book chapters, monographs, and essay book reviews in many of the leading journals in education at all levels. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Religion & Education, and one of its frequent contributors. Since 1996, he has published seven books, several of them national award winners: “Real World” Ethics: Frameworks for Educators and Human Service Professionals (1st and 2nd editions);  Answering the “Virtuecrats”: A Moral Conversation on Character Education; Faith, Hype, and Clarity: Teaching About Religion in American Schools and Colleges; Religious Pluralism in the Academy: Opening the Dialogue; Spirituality, Ethics, Religion, and Teaching: A Professor’s Journey; and Liberating Scholarly Writing: The Power of Personal Narrative. Another book, Facing the Demons: Survival Narratives for Educators, Students, and Human Service Professionals is out for review. He has also recently completed a book with Professor Penny Bishop, Middle-Level educator, whose working title is Teaching Adolescents Religious Literacy in a Post-9/11 World: Extending the Reach of Multiculturalism. The manuscript is currently out for review at a major academic press. At the present time, he is co-authoring a contracted book with Jossey-Bass/Wiley with DeMethra Bradley  and Arthur Chickering whose working title is Rekindling the Fire of Conversation: How To Talk about “Hot” Topics Across Campus Without Getting Burned. Publication date is late 2007 or early 2008.

He has done a variety of consultancies throughout the country for a number of human service organizations and colleges and universities. He has also made a a series of major presentations at national conferences and at universities on the topics of ethics, character education, religious pluralism, scholarly personal narrative scholarship, and moral conversation. He is a frequent, featured speaker at the national level.

In 2003, he was named an Official University Scholar in the Social Sciences and the Humanities at The University of Vermont, only the second faculty member in the history of the College of Education and Social Services to be so honored.