We are teaching in tough times. In our state, many of the schools in our university system are still reeling from the budget decreases that accompanied enrollment drops during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My university, one with a Predominantly Black Institution (PBI) designation, was hit especially hard, suffering a 17% decline in enrollment. […]
As a new faculty member at a public university on the West Coast, I was curious about the different ways I could integrate my faith into the classroom. In addition to publicly identifying myself as a Christian on the first day of class, could my faith make a difference in not only what I taught, […]
I was anxious when our oldest child left for college. I was concerned about the challenges to her Christian faith that she would encounter. Midway through her first semester, she called home upset. She had an assignment that required her to attend an off-campus event whose goals conflicted with our faith. It was a required […]
I gazed in disbelief at the numbers on the pharmacy display: 146 over 82. My doctor’s office visit reading of elevated blood pressure from a week before was correct after all. Busted! While taking on a departmental leadership role, one of the two program support staff vacated her position early in the spring semester. I […]
Early last summer, I was wrapping up a grant proposal that had not been awarded the year before but had received positive feedback. As a project team, when we decided to resubmit, we knew it would require significant changes based on the recommendations.. And, because it was a multi-state, multi-institutional project, it was a significant […]
Early each Wednesday morning, I jump on a Zoom call with a small group of incredible women from my campus. We spend 30-60 minutes sharing life’s stories and praying for each other. When we started this group, a Zoom prayer gathering made necessary by the pandemic, I would not have guessed we would still be […]
Many of us on campus feel the push and pull of how to engage with this generation of students. As followers of Christ, it is not always clear how to position ourselves within a campus culture that is prone to demonizing us. We are trying to figure out what it means to share our […]
I have found that God can lead and direct us in our academic research. Some time ago, I was asked to speak at a conference in Winnipeg, Canada, on the relevance of Marshall McLuhan’s faith for communication studies. McLuhan, one of the great pioneers of Media Theory, gave us “The medium is the message,” among […]
I was a little nervous to ask. We used to have a very good, casual work relationship within my research group, so such conversations would normally be very comfortable. But just over a year ago, I became the formal head, not just of this group, but also of its host organization, the ZHAW Centre for […]
Starting my career, I needed the right answer to three questions:
