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:
On a warm autumn afternoon, I navigated across campus to hear student feedback regarding a policy I had implemented as the Social Work Program Director. Upon entering the classroom, it became evident that this was no ordinary student feedback session. The desks had been arranged conference style resembling a long rectangle with students along each […]
For several years, I have taken a step of faith and started the first day of teaching by identifying as a Christian. This is for my own accountability since it makes me keenly aware that my behavior is linked to my identity as a follower of Jesus. I explain to them that because I follow Jesus, […]
In a recent presentation given at Cal Poly, one of the questions that was asked of the faculty attendees was, “How can we measure success?” Number of publications High teaching evaluations Grants These were some of the answers that emerged. But to my surprise, one of the professors answered, “Free time.” That was such a […]
Academic conferences. Man… I hate those things. I’ve been told that conferences are places for networking to advance my career. I never could bring myself to network with this intent – it felt disingenuous and exhausting. Time after time, I felt that I failed with every attempt. However, an academic conference I attended this summer […]
Ever since I accepted Jesus as my Savior in 2013, God has been revealing His love, power, and faithfulness to me. I would like to share how He helped me with my first National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. By the summer of 2016, three years after becoming a believer, God had already set me […]
Last summer, a Christian colleague encouraged me to share my story of trusting Jesus Christ on MeetTheProf.com. MeetTheProf is a website for Christian professors to write about their faith journeys and other information about themselves, making it easy to share the link with their students and colleagues. I liked the idea of having my profile […]
To survive in academia, it is required that a professor become a good manager of his or her time. Unfortunately, faculty are often asked to do more than they have time to do, and they become sorely tempted to drop “unnecessary” activities from their schedules, especially those that entail regular time commitments with no clear […]
