In 2007, Lev Szentkirályi started his doctoral studies in Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, and in desiring to study in a field that had greater practical application to the problems of social justice that concerned him, Dr. Szentkirályi changed the trajectory of his graduate studies and arrived on our campus in 2010 as a Ph.D. student in Political Science. Throughout the following years at CU, he developed an interdisciplinary specialization in political philosophy and international relations, engaging diverse empirical and philosophical problems of environmental risk, public health, and environmental justice, as well as the ethics of revolutionary violence. As a second-generation American citizen (the youngest son of András and Enikő Szentkirályi, both of whom immigrated from Hungary in the 1950s), Dr. Szentkirályi’s Hungarian heritage has uniquely shaped his formal studies, current research interests, and his teaching career.
In learning the sobering details of his parents’ histories—not the least of which included their enduring the Second World War in Budapest, Hungary, surviving Hungary’s revolution against the Soviet Union, and fleeing their home country for the promise of greater freedom and security—and in learning how his parents and various relatives were impacted by decisions of state actors, Dr. Szentkirályi became keenly interested in subjects of political morality: inspiring his commitment to the study of global and environmental justice, and our moral obligations to champion democratic values and to protect our communities against injustices. In this spirit, his current research explores contemporary problems of applied ethics like sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, gun violence, and disaster risk reduction. For example, Dr. Szentkirályi’s first book, The Ethics of Precaution (New York: Routledge, 2019), defends safeguards against scientifically-unverified environmental health threats and argues that industry is morally obligated to take reasonable strides to prevent putting others in the way of potential albeit uncertain harm—especially vulnerable groups, like children, the elderly, the poor, and marginalized minority groups. Similarly, his most recent manuscript, “Run, Hide, and Fight?!,” aims to raise the standard of corporate social responsibility by arguing that businesses have significant duties of due care to strive to safeguard the public against possibilities of gun-related injuries and deaths, which the gun industry has routinely failed to heed. Dr. Szentkirályi’s current book project, Future Uncertain, is a co-authored edited volume that critically engages genuine and manufactured challenges of uncertainty and brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners across the natural, social, and policy sciences, on a host of climate-change-related problems. In exploring prevailing uncertainties with the impacts of climate change on diverse issue-areas (like ocean health, infectious diseases, food systems, and water security), this book indicts those who would abuse uncertainty to sow doubt and confusion or to advance private agendas at the expense of truth and the public’s interest, and it reaffirms our capacity to overcome uncertainty and achieve greater environmental sustainability.
As a Political Science graduate student, Dr. Szentkirályi spent two years (2012-2014) serving as a Lead Graduate Student in the former Graduate Teacher Program (now housed within the Center for Teaching and Learning), working to refine his teaching skills and to promote teaching excellence among graduate students in his home department. It was through this meaningful experience that he discovered the importance of student-centered pedagogy and deliberately striving to accommodate the diverse needs of our students and to effectively teach to their different strengths to help them achieve their potential. This foundational principle has defined Dr. Szentkirályi’s interdisciplinary teaching career at CU. In 2017, he accepted a position as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric in the College of Arts and Sciences, where he designed and taught a diverse suite of thematic academic and professional writing courses at the intersection of public policy and ethics, which taught students how to improve their research and writing skills in their respective majors and professional futures. In 2022, Dr. Szentkirályi transitioned to the Leeds School of Business and joined the Social Responsibility and Sustainability Division, where he teaches courses on business ethics, global political economy, and environmental sustainability—helping Business students understand the broader social and ethical implications of their studies and future careers, and challenging students to explore their moral obligations as educated citizens and community leaders to improve the welfare of those who are underprivileged and marginalized. He also teaches occasional classes for the Herbst Program for Engineering, Ethics, and Society and the Philosophy Department.
Beyond his research and teaching, Dr. Szentkirályi also consistently invests in our broader campus community. For instance, as the former Boulder Faculty Assembly (BFA) Chair of the Student Affairs Committee, he collaborated with faculty and university leaders to motivate greater faculty involvement in promoting mental health wellness of CU students. During the pandemic, as the Student Affairs Committee Chair, he also served on the COVID-19 Faculty Response Committee, advising university leadership in promptly addressing myriad pressing and quickly-evolving challenges of the pandemic. As the Faculty Director for Global Initiatives in Leeds School of Business and the Director of the Global Business Certificate—which also involves serving on CU’s Education Abroad Committee and International Risk Committee—Dr. Szentkirályi helps to create meaningful experiential-learning opportunities for students, and helps to ensure rigorous global curricula that enhance students' cross-cultural competence and that prepare them for careers in a dynamic and globalized economy. Moreover, as the Faculty Fellow for Teaching and Clinical Professors with the Office of Faculty Affairs, Dr. Szentkirályi advocates for our non-tenure-track faculty and creates professional development programming to support early-, mid-, and late-career teaching and clinical professors through unique challenges that define their careers at CU. Finally, as the Founder and Executive Director of the Szentkirályi Scholarship Fund—a 501(c)(3) private, non-profit foundation whose purpose is to award scholarships to deserving CU students—Dr. Szentkirályi strives to enrich the educational experience of our students by recognizing their achievements and potential, and to expand the educational opportunities available to students who face unique barriers to attending college and succeeding in their studies.
Whether it’s contributing to a talk at the Conference on World Affairs, facilitating graduate student workshops on teaching and learning for CTL, hosting professional development workshops for teaching and clinical professors, or regularly treating his students to coffees to explore their academic and professional aspirations, as a dedicated educator and colleague, Dr. Szentkirályi has a strong presence on campus and in Leeds—always wearing a smile, always willing to help others, and always ready for a friendly conversation over a cup of coffee.