Real Quotes from Real Students

First, Roger was outstandingly dedicated... Roger was good at taking difficult concepts and describing them evocatively and from multiple angles, and also drawing connections across different parts of a text. That's not to say that he did not leave room for discussion or did not allow his students to give their views, because he always did, but what stood out was his knack for explaining difficult concepts.... My college education would have been very different—much poorer— without Roger. In fact, I'd probably be quite a different person altogether if not for him.

 – Amil Adams

My undergraduate education in philosophy would have been much poorer without Roger's guidance and insight... [T]he passion he has for teaching sets him apart.

– Samantha Neal

The willingness to engage students’ questions is a hallmark of good teaching, especially at the undergraduate level, and I believe Roger exemplifies this trait... He is able to sensitively understand the questions that students bring to the classroom and to respond in a way that deepens the students’ own understanding – I have benefited from this trait inside as well as outside the classroom.

– Lucas Tse

Participating in Roger's Heidegger reading group may have been the single most enriching experience during my time as an undergraduate at UChicago. Roger’s patience, erudition, and sensitivity to the text and the cooperative reading of it we developed as a group opened up one of the most daunting philosophical works to us and profoundly changed the way I think about philosophy, the world, and our place in it.

– Simon Stanco

Through his teaching style, Roger consistently demonstrated what it meant to actively and meaningfully engage with challenging philosophical texts and questions. Instead of avoiding thorny interpretative issues, he’d confront them head-on by openly examining the limitations of his own interpretations and exploring ways to resolve apparent contradictions and lacunas in the text/philosophical tradition. In doing so, Roger not only made abstract concepts and long-standing debates compelling, but also exemplified the kind of analytical, philosophical thinking that could allow students to deeply engage with any subject matter. From my own experience, I know that emulating his values of precise articulation, charitable interpretation, and intellectual humility led to a dramatic improvement in the rigor of my own writing and reasoning.

– Dzan Harba

The courses I took from Roger were some of the best I have had, either at UChicago or Berkeley. I think that Roger is a phenomenal instructor, and any undergraduate would be lucky to get to take a course from him... The success of these courses was in large part due to Roger’s ability to facilitate discussions. Roger has an uncanny ability allow students to formulate their own views on a piece of work while at the same time providing a solid framework to think about the work in. Furthering this, Roger is a great adjudicator in disputes over things like interpretations of a text or the implications of a set of ideas. Rather than just siding with one view, he would try and draw out, often literally on the board, what both parties were trying to say, to get everyone in the course on the same page... I aspire to be a professor one day, and Roger will definitely be one of the people I try to emulate.

- Ryan Zarcone