I think, therefore I race

Chairperson of ethics committee helps students race for academic success

HARLEY DAVIS Reporter @ht_davis

Cold weather may not be ideal for bike racing, but it can provide time to slow down and think.

Cara Gillis did plenty of thinking in her snowy hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick, and realized that not only did she enjoy deep thought, but she appreciated that a warmer climate would allow her to continue competitive cycling.

While the bike has been put away since 2012 after a race across the country and having a child, but Gillis keeps exercising her mind as the chair of Philosophy department at Pierce College.

“I’m from a small town in the northeast of Canada,” Gillis said. “You walk everywhere, or ski in the winter everywhere. It’s just a much slower pace of life, compared to Los Angeles. I’m sure there are a lot of places in America that are more small town.”

Before she studied philosophy, Gillis was a biology major in Canada, where the collegiate program at universities is a little different.

“There’s not the same GE [general education] thing that happens,” Gillis said. “I was a biology major and in my first year I had one elective, otherwise they were all biology classes, so I took philosophy.”

Gillis found an internal connection to philosophy, although there were also some interesting classroom activities according to her.

“The professor was juggling at breaks and brought his dog to class,”

Gillis said. “But then the way you question things in Philosophy just clicked in my brain. I would take exams and I would read the question and I would start thinking, ‘Why would they ask the question this way?’ instead of just trying to write down the answer to a question. So when I saw philosophy in this elective that I just happened to take, I realized that this was how my brain works.”

Gillis felt that her parents would not approve of her changing majors as they were adept in the sciences.

“I switched my major but I didn’t tell my parents for a long time, they weren’t going to be happy,” Gillis said. “They were both science people, and they were kind of engineers. Math really wasn’t my forte, so they weren’t pressuring me down that road, but they really wanted me to do something science related.”

When she moved here in 2001, Gillis applied to California State University, Long Beach and continued to race while in school.

“I needed a student visa so I applied to Cal State Long Beach at the last minute,” Gillis said. “I knew I wanted a Ph.D. in philosophy, so I did a masters at Cal State Long Beach and then applied to UC Irvine and I raced bikes up until 2012, so even after I was working here I was still racing a full schedule.”

Gillis stopped racing after her pair race in the Race Across America in