I create transformative learning experiences.
From the classroom, to outdoor education, to a conference series, and a new graduate program, I engage and inspire diverse learners.
My courses explore how environmental change, including biodiversity loss and climate change, is interpreted and understood through humanistic lenses such as religion, ethics, philosophy, sociology, and history - fields that analyze the human production of meaning and value.
Moving across disciplinary boundaries requires attention to the epistemological assumptions that guide research and argumentation. With a background that spans the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities, I am fluent in bringing diverse domains into conversation.
ECOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY & RELGIONCourses
TEACHING APPROACHIt has been said that the ideal learning relationship consists of a professor sitting on one end of a log and a student on the other.
This brief image contains several aspects worthy of comment.
First, the teacher and student are sitting at the same level, suggesting an egalitarian relationship to which both contribute to learning and teaching. In this image, the student is not a vessel to be filled, but a worthy interlocutor in a quest for understanding. The opening between the two partners is a space, created together, where insight can grow.
Second, sitting on a log together suggests easy camaraderie and an ongoing relationship. Sitting on a log, rather than in chairs, allows for movement and different postures, which may prompt novel approaches to the questions at hand.
Finally, the log itself, as an appropriate seat for education, is noteworthy. The log has not been refined into lumber for chairs and desks; it is not far removed from its life as a tree. The incorporation of a log into this image suggests the important role that the natural environment plays in education, particularly in environmental humanities.
In this image, the natural environment is not relegated to background, a blank stage on which human activities take place, but is in fact the essential element that links teacher and student and allows education to take place.
CIIS MA AND PHD DEGREES