What’s something that you are curious about?

I am curious about a LOT of things!

I am curious about how to support my classes and our broader community in creating supportive environments and mentorships that fill each person with a sense of belonging and fuel us towards self-improvement. I am curious how God will bring both heaven and earth together and what that will look like. I am curious about how to engage online learners in ways that captivate their attention and develop their learning. I am curious about how to support a foundation when installing a egress system. I am curious about where the best pizza place is. The list goes on and on.

How do wonder and curiosity connect to your life as a scholar and instructor?

As an instructor there are four aspects that seem to keep my attention most within this area.

First is how do I create a classroom environment where everyone feels safe and wanted. A place where students don’t feel hesitation to ask questions or add comments.

Second, how can I keep developing curiosity not just answer seeking? Most of life is wrapped in ambiguity, rarely is there one and only one right answer, yet often class gets set up to reinforce looking for the one right answer.

Third, how can I work to connect material we are working on to the diversity of students interests/ career pathways?

Fourth, how can I present faith in ways that show my understanding of the interconnectedness of content and creation and leave plenty of space for others to develop their understanding?

What do you hope to learn more about in the future?

I’d always like to learn to be a better teacher, a better husband and father, a better friend.  I hope to learn how to help build a deeper community for students in our major.  I’d like to learn more about motivating people towards positive behavior change.  I’d like to learn how to weld effectively.  I’d like to learn to skimboard.  I’d like to learn as many varied things as I am curious about.

How does the pursuit of learning connect to your faith?

I believe God clearly asked us to be good stewards. To me that includes not only using the gifts and strengths that we are blessed with to help others, but also to recognize and work to develop areas we are less gifted in. I believe we are meant to care for and support each other as well as the physical world around us. With those foundations, my areas of interest are often more aligned towards the support of all the members in our community.

I think the more I can help future professionals with understanding content and concepts the better able they will be to help their clients/students/athletes/patients/etc. But the greatest barrier in serving others often is not our content knowledge, it is instead misunderstandings and prejudices that create barriers between people.

What about the things you are learning, researching, or teaching gives you hope? 

My hope is renewed each day by interactions with students, staff and faculty. We represent a diversity of backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, and hopes. Despite this diversity there are common underlying themes such as: a respect for others, a desire to see others flourish and feel well, a desire for everyone to feel connected to community and a sense of belonging, etc.

It gives me great hope that while we can at times disagree on the methods or what should be prioritized, that we as people care for and work to love others in a Christ-like fashion.