Bill Vitek

Bill Vitek directs the New Perennials project, and is a scholar-in residence and affiliate humanist chaplain at Middlebury College. Vitek taught philosophy for 32 years at Clarkson University, always with the objective of helping students understand that the philosophical imagination can and must do useful work in the world. Much of his work has engaged ecological issues, including collaborations with Wes Jackson for over three decades. Vitek and Jackson co-edited two books, Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place (1996) and The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge (2008). A semi-professional jazz pianist, Vitek founded and performs in The Jazz Collective in Middlebury, Vermont.