Meet Your Associate Dean
“It is such a pleasure to take up the position of the first Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences, Academic. I love being part of the activity across our division that promotes student success, outstanding pedagogy, and community relationships. It’s never been a better time to support the values of creative and critical expression and cultural understanding.”
Dr. Kathryn Norlock
Associate Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences
About Kathryn (Kate) Norlock (she/her)
Dr. Kathryn Norlock became a member of the Trent community in 2010 as the first endowed chair in Trent’s history, the Kenneth Mark Drain Chair in Ethics. As a professor of Philosophy and associate faculty of the Gender & Social Justice department, Dr. Norlock has contributed significantly to the field of feminist philosophy during her tenure at Trent. She is the founder and co-editor of Feminist Philosophy Quarterly (FQP), an online peer-reviewed journal that offers high-calibre feminist philosophical scholarship publications at no cost to authors and readers. FQP improves the presence and impact of women and feminist philosophers and continues to be supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grants (last awarded in 2022), so future publications of this journal can remain free for authors and readers.
As a longstanding member of the Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy (CSWIP), Dr. Norlock has made a lasting impact on feminist philosophical scholarship as an educator, researcher, and editor. In 2022, Dr. Norlock was the recipient of the prestigious Eastern Society for Women in Philosophy’s (E-SWIP) 2022 Distinguished Philosopher Award, a recognition of her work in advancing accessible and high-quality feminist philosophical scholarship. Her current projects involve research in moral philosophy and ethical virtues, especially forgiveness. Dr. Norlock is currently working on a book based on her research about when it’s good to complain, and is also a participant in a Templeton Foundation Grant project, an interdisciplinary working group centralizing on the nature and value of intellectual humility in context of oppression and marginalization. As an interdisciplinary scholar, Dr. Norlock is also a faculty member in the English Public Texts graduate program, and enjoys advising undergraduate and graduate students.