Biography - Background - Andrew Hill - Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Philip's College

The Personal Story

I am a native Texan, born in Houston and raised in Sugar Land, Texas.

I attended St. Thomas More Catholic grade school and Strake Jesuit College Preparatory in Houston, before attending St. Mary's University in San Antonio, where I met my wife Dr. Mary Lynne Gasaway Hill.

During college, I spent two summers doing health care field work as a volunteer for Amigos de las America, in Mexico and Costa Rica respectively. After graduation, Mary Lynne and I were married on campus in Assumption Chapel in January of 1988. In fact, we baptized our only child on Easter Day in 2006 in the same chapel in which we had been married eighteen years earlier.

I began work at St. Mary's University in 1988, working in Enrollment Management, and later after law school, in Student Development first as the Associate Dean of Students and then later as the Director of the Service Learning Center. During this time, I was first appointed to the Associate Faculty of the Graduate School, as a Lecturer of law and ethics, on May 1, 1998.  After five years, I was promoted to Senior Lecturer “in recognition of distinguished teaching service to the University.”

While at St. Mary's University, I taught courses on international law and treaties, and on international legal systems, for the International Relations program at St. Mary's.  I am a member of the American Society for International Law (ASIL) & International Bar Association (IBA).

Also while at St. Mary's University, I led several international service and study-abroad trips, including a service trip with a dozen students to Coahuila, Mexico in 2004, and a semester-long study abroad trip with three dozen students to London, England in 2002.

I have lectured widely on integrating Service Learning into international education programs, including at the 2004 Conference on International Education Exchange held in November in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and at the 2004 joint conference of the National Society for Experiential Education and the International Consortium for Experiential Learning held in October in Miami, Florida.

Also during these years, my wife Mary Lynne was a professor at St. Mary's, in the English and Communication Studies Department. Together we worked and taught for many years at the University, and also tried to advance the Catholic and Marianist identity of the university. In recognition of these and other efforts, we jointly received the Marianist Heritage Award in January of 2000.

In the following years, we continued these efforts through: teaching as faculty members for the Marianist International Institute of Language (2000); publishing articles, a book chapter in "Understanding Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities" (2002), and the book "Stories from the Wake" (2005); presenting to Marianist high schools and universities, such as “The Characteristics of Marianist Education and Leadership,” at Nolan Catholic High School, Ft. Worth, Texas (2003) and at the Marianist Universities Meetings (St. Mary's 1997, Dayton 1998, Chaminade 1999, St. Mary's 2001, Dayton 2002, Chaminade 2003, St. Mary's 2004, Dayton 2005); and leading the Marianist Forum, which I did with one of the Marianist Brothers, Dr. Michael Sullivan, S.M. (2003 - 2005).

In 2006, following the birth of our son "AJ," we relocated near family in Fort Worth, Texas.  Mary Lynne cared for "AJ" and kept writing as an independent scholar, and I worked at the University of Dallas until 2008, the year I began my current studies at Trinity College Dublin. For the next four years, I enjoyed the famous Marianist hospitality as a frequent visitor and guest of the Brothers at the Marianist Community in Ballybrack, Dublin, near the Marianist school there: St. Laurence College. As a postgraduate research student looking into human rights, my research took me into the field of peace practitioners, and thus to the Glencree Centre for Peace & Reconciliation in Enniskerry, Co. Wicklow, Ireland, and to the Corrymeela Peace & Reconciliation Centre in Ballycastle, Co. Antrim, Northern Ireland. The visit to Corrymeela was a life changer, and the entire family moved to Northern Ireland, as both Mary Lynne and I began working at the Centre as volunteers and young "AJ" was enrolled into the Ballycastle Integrated Primary School.

During this time, I was part of the team that planned and executed the 2011 Irish Peace Centres International Summer School, called "Capturing and Sharing the Learning," and also the 2012 Lilly Fellows Program Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers, called “Teaching Peace and Reconciliation: Theory and Practice in Northern Ireland." The latter program was funded with a generous grant from the Lilly Foundation, which allowed 14 college professors from the United States to travel to Corrymeela to study the history of the Anglo-Irish conflict in Ireland, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, and the resulting move to a post-conflict society. The participants also explored the on-going reconciliation efforts with world-class scholars who are shaping its theoretical framework and with seasoned practitioners who are bringing this theory to life in a still divided society.

We returned to Texas for the beginning of the academic year in fall 2011, with Mary Lynne accepting a post back "home" in the English Department at St. Mary's University, and with me teaching Philosophy and Ethics at Northwest Vista College. I have now moved to St. Philip's College, where I continue to teach Philosophy and Ethics and write my dissertation for Trinity College Dublin.

The participants in the 2012 Lilly Fellows Program Summer Seminar for College and University Teachers, called “Teaching Peace and Reconciliation: Theory and Practice in Northern Ireland."