Instructor

About

  • Role:

    Faculty
  • Position:

    • Instructor
  • Concentration:

    • Vedic religion, world religions, monasticism
  • Department:

    • Philosophy
  • Education:

    • MA, Cornell University, 1998

Biography

Mac McGoldrick has been teaching in the department since 2002 and he was awarded the 2016 Ann Gill Excellence in Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts. His academic training is in the area of socio-cultural religious studies, and his expertise is the Vedic traditions of India. His goal as a teacher at CSU is to help students discover and understand the interconnections between various academic disciplines, the nature of a complex, interconnected world, and the connection between learning and living our lives. His courses seek to help students discover innovative and creative responses to fundamental human questions, to foster interdisciplinary understanding, to testing and examining our beliefs and commitments to build integrated knowledge of a complex, multifaceted world.

He spent time as a monk living in India and Japan where he earned various monastic degrees and spent time in deep study.  Currently, his research includes work related to the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, and varied cultural and religious expressions of Buddhist philosophy.

From 2006 to 2018 Mac served CSU as Director of Operations and Associate Chair of the Energy Institute, a cross-campus, interdisciplinary department focused on all areas of clean energy research at the University. Since leaving the energy institute, Mac has focused on a number of different projects including work on a documentary and the development and deployment of a corporate mindfulness and resilience curriculum, which he has taught for Intel, Salesforce, Boeing, Apple, and other large multinational corporations.