Dr. Heather Reid, associate professor of philosophy, began teaching at Morningside in 1996. She holds a doctorate and master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and English language and literature from the University of Virginia.

  She was a competitive bicycle racer in the 1980s and first traveled to Italy in 1984 to visit relatives. She speaks fluent Italian and has produced study tours in Italy and Greece and knows a great deal about local history, especially the Etruscans, Romans, and Renaissance Florentines.

She has received international recognition for her expertise on the philosophical foundations of the Olympic Games and was elected president of the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport (IAPC) during its 33rd annual meeting in September 2005. She has presented at such conferences as the International Association for the Philosophy of Sport in Cheltenham, United Kingdom, and The International Conference on Greek Philosophy in Athens, Greece. She served as a supervising professor at the 2005 International Postgraduate Seminar of the International Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece. In January 2005, she was a visiting scholar at the American Academy in Rome, Italy.

She is currently writing a book about philosophy and athletics in the ancient world. She is the author of The Philosophical Athlete, published in 2002 by Carolina Academic Press, Durham, N.C.

Most recently, she has had two book chapters and two journal articles published, among which were “Athletics as Medicine for the Soul” in the journal Skepsis XIII-XIV and “Socrates at the Ballpark” in the book Baseball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Batter’s Box, published by Open Court, La Salle, Ill. She has served on the editorial board of review for the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport since 1998.

Reid was a recipient of Morningside’s 2005 Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Award. The awards are presented for teaching excellence, effective advising, scholarship, and service to the college and are based upon the accomplishments and activities of a faculty member during the previous academic year.