The first person to teach a “Feminist Philosophy” course in the country and the first woman to ever teach college-level courses at Leavenworth State Penitentiary may not be in your history book yet, but she is in the GE Building here on campus.

Dr. Dorothy Haecker, professor of Philosophy, chair of the Behavioral Sciences and Humanities Department and director of Palo Alto’s Self-Study, makes history happen.

Haecker is Palo Alto’s nominee for the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation Award for the 2001-2002 academic year. The Piper Foundation, which began in 1958, gives awards of $5,000 each to 15 winners.

Winners are chosen based on nominations submitted by two and four-year colleges and universities, both public and private.

English Professor Ellen Shull nominated Haecker in November of 2001. Shull recognized Haecker’s excellence in teaching and her ability to pull people toward her like a magnet.

The roots of Haecker’s education began when she grew up on the South Side of San Antonio and graduated as valedictorian of Highlands High School in 1961. She was eager, willing and ready to attend college and did so only because of a scholarship from the League of United Latin American Citizens.

Haecker has 37 years of teaching experience, with 12 of those years dedicated to Palo Alto. She began her career at Palo Alto as an assistant professor of Philosophy and has continuously worked beyond the call of duty. Haecker helped develop the Mexican-American Studies program and led numerous campus presentations, including her “Hot Potato” series.

The “Hot Potato” series was called that because of the nature of the topics, most meant to evoke controversy. Topics ranged from “What does it mean to be moral?” to “Sexual Ethics.”

Haeckers thoughts were to get different perspectives, different ways of thinking and the consequences. “It gets students to thinking,” said Haecker.

Her accomplishments at Palo Alto have not gone unnoticed. Haecker received the Faculty Excellence Award in 1995. In 1997, she was a finalist for the Starfish Award and in 1998, a finalist for the Students’ Faculty Choice Award.

Haecker’s nomination does not consist of a phone call or submitting a name into a pool. Her nomination form included her extensive background in teaching and seven letters of recommendation from both colleagues and former students.

One is former student and Senior Secretary Alfred Aleman, who has worked alongside Haecker for four years.

Aleman wrote that he had a unique experience of taking a Feminist Philosophy course with Haecker. He was the only male among 15 women of various backgrounds. Aleman wrote, “Never have I undergone such an experience, an atmosphere of restraint and skepticism on the part of most of the students. By mid-semester–some eight lectures, two tests and several papers later, as well as innumerable personal anecdotes that everybody had contributed–the class had come together in one purpose only: to learn as much about feminism as possible. Dr. Haecker gave us that unity of purpose.”

Another recommendation was submitted by Professor of Philosophy John Hernandez who wrote, “In my twenty years in higher education, both as a student and, now, as a teacher, I have never met a more caring, compassionate, and competent teacher than Dr. Dorothy Haecker.”

Despite Haecker’s success, some tasks are still challenging for her. As a teacher who began teaching in the 1960s, the challenge for Haecker is to learn and adapt to new generations of students. Students from the ‘60s and ‘90s are going to have different needs. “What do I have that they need?” Haecker said. Her goal is to build a bridge from her students to Philosophy.

In another recommendation, Adjunct Philosophy Professor Peter Van Dusen wrote, “I will simply say that no other colleague has been more of an inspiration to my own teaching than has Dr. Haecker.”

Included in the nomination application is a statement of purpose written by Haecker, “I love the constant, endless search for what is worth knowing, for what students who span five decades are needing to learn. I love the alchemical marvel of the classroom, where minds and hearts connect and come alive, where minds are created and changed, and where learning becomes an adventure and a passion.”

After fulfilling her duties as director of the Self-Study, Haecker will resume teaching this Summer with a World Religions course and in the Fall with Introduction to Philosophy.