By Marko Salopek, reporter

Like many of the excellent professors at PPCC, Bruce McCluggage can be summed up with one word: passionate.

Anyone who has met McCluggage can attest to this. McCluggage loves talking about students, teaching, and the community, and can discuss these subjects for hours.

Twelve years ago, McCluggage started his journey as a philosophy professor here at PPCC with a grand idea:

“I truly want to change civilization,” McCluggage said.

He believes the best path to achieve such change is to enlighten the minds of his students through philosophy.

“Philosophy helps expose the human condition,” McCluggage said. “It helps to expose what we really know about the cosmos around us and our relationship in it.”

Professor McCluggage’s path to becoming a philosophy professor at PPCC started while studying at Penn State University to be an engineer. McCluggage said he had a personal awakening at Penn State, which led him to turn down his ROTC scholarship and earn a BA in communication instead.

Later, he would earn an MA in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Through the Philosophy Club and various community events, Professor McCluggage encourages his students to take their newfound knowledge beyond the classroom.

The community in Community College holds special meaning for Professor McCluggage, and he strives to kindle that same love of community within his students.

“Whatever I want my students to be about, I need to be demonstrating that first and foremost,” McCluggage said.

Holding true to that belief, he is actively engaged outside of the walls of our institution, attending city council meetings, delivering sandwiches to the disadvantaged, and facilitating programs at local coffee shops discussing current cultural issues.

McCluggage said he would like to see the concept of service learning expanded and the creation of a lab environment for the humanities and liberal arts, allowing students to practice bringing what they have learned out into the world.

“It’s on me to show you how exciting and how in-depth and relevant and real and applicable this notion of philosophy can be in your life.” McCluggage said.

For more information on Philosophy Club, email bruce.mccluggage@ppcc.edu