This year, Colorado College\u2019s John Riker, professor of philosophy, is celebrating 50 years of teaching at the college. A celebration was held at this year\u2019s Homecoming, with Riker giving a talk on his recent scholarship, \u201cPhilosophy and Psychoanalysis: Re-vitalizing Contemporary Life,\u201d alongside a celebratory event and reception with Professor of Philosophy Jonathan Lee interviewing Riker, and past students and colleagues attending.<\/p>\n
Ten years past retirement age, Riker shows no signs of slowing down. His time at CC has been \u201cthe most exciting space of any college I\u2019ve spent time at, so alive and engaging. It\u2019s too wonderful to give up. You\u2019re going to have to drag me away from this,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Riker arrived in 1968, and would become a prolific scholar \u2014 publishing books and articles, and giving talks across the country and around the world on ethics, psychoanalysis, and \u201cwhat it means to be human,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Born in 1943 in New Jersey, Riker spent his formative years in a \u201csmall, boutique town outside of New York City.\u201d Just as Riker was heading into high school, his father took a CEO position in Montreal. \u201cI couldn\u2019t go to school in Montreal as I didn\u2019t have 10 years of French language skill. While my father\u2019s work took him north, my schooling took me to the Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts,\u201d says Riker.<\/p>\n
Discovering his academic passions at Mount Hermon, Riker then went to Middlebury College. He graduated as class valedictorian in 1965, a member of Phi Beta Kappa with High Honors, with his B.A. in philosophy. From Vermont, Riker went south to Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, pursuing and receiving both his Master\u2019s and Ph.D. within three years.<\/p>\n
Helping to launch the Block Plan at CC, Riker first arrived at CC on the semester plan \u2014 teaching three courses a semester before the change of structure. When the Block Plan came into play in 1970, it changed everything.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was framed to us faculty as \u2018how do we want to teach?\u2019\u201d explains Riker. \u201cThat very act of choosing rather than simply accepting what had come before, it put so much energy, vitality into this place, you could live off it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Riker\u2019s time at CC has been one of service, scholarship, and engaged teaching; he was teacher of the year four times, advisor of the year three times, recipient of the Gresham Riley Award for Distinguished Service, three-time department chair, and member of the general education and Watson Fellowship nomination committees.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring my initial 25 years at CC I published almost nothing, but since 1992 I\u2019ve published four books, 15 or more articles, and I give two to three papers around the country and the world each year,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI finally got ahold of a set of ideas I believed in. It took me time to grasp what I needed to say as a philosopher, rather than going article to article on what someone else had already thought. I wanted to find my own voice,\u201d Riker explains.<\/p>\n
True self-expression stretches beyond the classroom for Riker, into the dance studio.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been dancing in some form or fashion my whole life, from cotillion when I was 8 or 9 until today, teaching and sharing ballroom dance with CC students,\u201d Riker says.<\/p>\n
He and Marcia Dobson, professor of classics, have been teaching ballroom dance to CC students
\nand community members for nearly two decades, with official adjunct classes being held for the past three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just decided to involve young people in ballroom dance,\u201d Riker says about his spouse and himself. \u201cSomething we both loved, Marcia and I, and we wanted to share with others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sharing with others, from philosophy to dance, is a hallmark of Riker\u2019s life. Reflecting on his career, so far, he simply says, \u201cIt really doesn\u2019t feel like 50 years of teaching, at all. I\u2019m not going anywhere, anytime soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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