and Society. American Association of Philosophy Teachers In the late 1960s and early 1970s, during the Vietnam War, university students across America demanded that their university courses should be "relevant" to their lives and to the solution of urgent social problems. In this environment, as the Editor-in-Chief of Metaphilosophy, Bynum had begun (in 1969) to accept articles on topics, such as "applied philosophy" and philosophical analyses of social unrest, as well as articles on the improvement of the teaching of philosophy. By 1974, Bynum was convinced that there should be a national conference on the teaching of philosophy, not only to improve the teaching of traditional philosophy courses, but also to create new courses in applied philosophy in new environments, such as elementary schools, high schools, technical colleges, public libraries, prisons and "old folks' homes". He organized and headed a conference planning committee consisting of scholars and teachers from universities, colleges, technical schools, high schools, elementary schools, and a representative of the American Philosophical Association. The resulting conference was called The National Workshop-Conference on Teaching Philosophy, and it occurred on the campus of Union College in Schenectady, New York in August 1976. It lasted five days and attracted over 300 attendees from the United States, Canada and Japan. At the closing session, the attendees asked Bynum and his committee to put together a similar conference to be held two years later. In August 1978, the Second National Workshop-Conference on Teaching Philosophy, again headed by Bynum, occurred for a second time on the Union College campus. At the closing session, attendees asked Bynum and his committee to put together a professional organization to run such a workshop-conference every two years. Bynum appointed and headed a steering committee to create the new organization, which was to be called the American Association of Philosophy Teachers. In 1979, with advice from the steering committee, Bynum wrote the constitution and articles of incorporation and filed legal papers to make AAPT an official non-profit educational membership corporation of the State of New York. In August 1980, on the campus of the University of Toledo, the Third National Workshop-Conference on Teaching Philosophy became the first official conference of AAPT, and Bynum was selected as the first executive director, a position that he held for four years. He remained on the AAPT's board of officers until 1994, serving as vice-president in 1989 to 1990, president in 1991–1992, and