A student at Gannon University, was recently featured for his work in the 2016 installment of “The Examined Life: An Undergraduate Conference in the Liberal Arts.”
The conference took place at St. Francis University, where Kyle Rodewald was one of 30 students from the Eastern region to be recognized for their work.
Other participants included students from Penn State Behrend, Iona College and Marshall University.
His paper, “Limiting Consumption on the Path to Virtue,” was part of the philosophy/theory category of the conference.
The paper examined the current consumption of digital media and its effects on political process and responsible citizenship.
Rodewald’s paper acknowledges the need for consumption, but also affirms that the kind of consumption our culture pursues leads to mindlessness and even addiction.
The paper was written in response to a critique by Pope Francis. Pope Francis critiques North American culture as reckless with regard to consumption – both natural resources, food and information technology.
Rodewald wrote the paper for his ethics class last semester after being told of the conference.
His paper was one of many that were selected for presentation at the conference.
The conference functioned like a forum – the students presented their papers and the audience was able to interact and ask questions.
Aaron Kerr, Ph. D., an assistant professor of the philosophy and theology department at Gannon, was Rodewald’s mentor throughout this process.
“Just as the committee for the conference liked Kyle’s idea, I did too,” Kerr said. “It was creative in bringing ancient Stoic philosophy to bear on a modern problem.”
Kerr said that the conference and Rodewald’s involvement will help his future plans of going to law school.
HARLEE BOEHM
[email protected]