Dwayne Tunstall of Philosophy sees his work on behalf of his professional associations as part of his duty to his discipline. Not only is he secretary (2015-2019) of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, since 2015 he has been a member of the American Philosophical Association and on its Committee on the Status of Black Philosophers. He has also served since 2016 as the APS’s co-editor for the newsletter Philosophy and the Black Experience, and he is on the executive board for Philosophy Born of Struggle. 

And come to think of it, he’s on the editorial board for the online philosophy journal Marcel Studies (on Gabriel Marcel, French, 1889-1973) and for Acorn, Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence.

Professor Tunstall explained that this usually means reviewing six to eight articles and one to three books a year. “I stepped into this work increasingly. A decade ago I discussed with a mentor over lunch at a conference where I would be in ten years. I had no idea. My mentor asked ‘what about the organizations, how do they sustain themselves?’  I was afraid to answer then, but if you want these scholarly opportunities, people have to be willing to do the work.”

He began this work very close to his specialty—the Josiah Royce Society. Over the course of five years, he went from an ‘at large’ representative on the board to vice president to President. In 2011, he helped to organize a conference for 25 held at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

As president and with the executive board and members, he hosted a conference about Royce in Grass Valley, California, Royce’s birthplace. It was at a Royce conference that Tunstall met Kelly Parker of the GVSU Philosophy Department.

Almost as an afterthought, he described the work involved in reviewing submissions. Since the public was welcome at the conference, he addressed a Rotary Club about Royce, and donated a book to the local library. He also maintained the website, acquired the conference software to create the database, and fielded submission questions. These support tasks freed the program committee to review about 80 submissions.

“I like this work, behind the scenes, even more than representing the organization—better to be secretary than president.”

So it is no surprise that Kelly Parker (philosophy) had a skillful and experienced collaborator in delivering the 2015 Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy conference at the Grand Rapids downtown Courtyard Marriott with 140 attendees. The planning for this conference began a year and a half in advance and involved Experience GR.

“We even had an app for attendees,” Tunstall recalled.

Even as he describes the work, Dwayne starts to appreciate the sheer volume of what he has worked on rather early in his career.

“I’d like to slow down a little,” he claimed, noting that some of this work occurred even before tenure. He also has some other service interests, such as student retention and recruitment through the Oliver Wilson Freshman Academy Success Institute in late summer before move-in.

“These students are conditionally admitted based on their ACT scores. I keep up with my team of students.”

He also did some work as an interim co-facilitator for the GVSU Recovery Camp as well as serving as a Faculty Mentor for two years. 

He noted that retention is not always about grades or academic competence. “I see that time management, stress, the demands of college, family circumstances, finances and working all come into it, not just academics.”

He’s also involved in ED 180 “Academic Success Strategies” which is run as a May one credit class. Students can resent being there so working through those emotions becomes part of the job. 

“The students see their grades become official on Banner and it hits home during this residential camp."

As the interview came to a conclusion, Dwayne Tunstall thought of a couple more things. During the summer he taught Theories of Human Nature and he moved. He’s working on a 2018 SAAP conference in Indianapolis and prepping his submission for anonymous review.

It would be easy to find his claim that he’s “cutting down a little” to be somewhat suspect. The college was recently notified that Professor Tunstall is now the non-Pierce editor for the Transactions of the Charles Pierce Society.