Dr. Grant H. Potts received his Masters in Religious Studies from Arizona State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He also received additional graduate training in Philosophy from Texas State University. He is a former Chair of Philosophy, Religion, and Humanities and has served in various leadership roles at Austin Community College and in national organizations dedicated to the study of religion and to community college teaching and learning.

Teaching Philosophy

Dr. Potts’ goal is to develop core thinking, reading, and writing skills in his students, including basic research skills, while introducing them to the disciplines in which he teaches and through the interdisciplinary study of the humanities. He uses a variety of teaching techniques, though he believes that the opportunity to engage in free and open discussion of transformational texts is essential to any college education. More than anything else, he wants his students to leave his classroom with the ability to think more carefully and responsibly about the topics they explore, and to have developed the skills and learned the tools available for them to do so while forming intellectual friendships with their peers.

Areas of Interest

The primary focus of Dr. Potts’ current work is promoting religious literacy and interreligious understanding as a public good both within ACC and promoting curriculum and program-level reform to assure all community college students have access to the benefits of liberal education. He is on the board of directors of the Great Questions Foundation, where he serves as Treasurer, an educational non-profit that offers faculty development and support programs nationwide to community college faculty to refocus “high-enrollment, required general education courses around the discussion-based study of transformative texts that have been identified by Community College faculty as particularly suitable for early academic engagement.” As a scholar, he is interested in ritual and the study of ritual, discussions in contemporary ethics and justice theory, and the comparative study of great works of human global civilization both in the past and in the present. He maintains a professional practice of reading widely and regularly in world literature, scholarship on religion, and in contemporary philosophy and organizes and/or participates in numerous faculty and community reading groups.

Courses Taught at ACC
PHIL-1304: Introduction to Comparative Religion

PHIL-1316: History of Eastern Religions (no longer offered at ACC)

PHIL-1317: History of Western Religions (no longer offered at ACC)
PHIL-1301: Introduction to Philosophy
PHIL-2306: Ethics
PHIL-2316: Philosophy of Religion
HUMA-1301: Prehistory to Renaissance – Great Questions Seminar

Courses Taught Elsewhere
RELS 1304: Introduction to the Religions of the World (St. Edward’s University)

RELS 2342: Special Topics, Religion and America (St. Edward’s University)

GLST 2149: Global Studies Internship (St. Edward’s University)

CULF 2321: American Dilemmas (St. Edward’s University)

CULF 3330: History and Evolution of Global Processes (St. Edward’s University)

CULF 3331: World Religions and Globalization (St. Edward’s University)

CAPS 4260: Senior Capstone (St. Edward’s University)

ENGW 201: Expository Writing (Pacific University)

RELS 009: Writing About Religion (University of Pennsylvania)

RELS 006: Understanding the Cult Controversy (University of Pennsylvania)

RELS 106: Modern Religious Thought (University of Pennsylvania)