ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ

Disciplines/Field of Instruction

• Professor in Master of Arts in Higher Education
• Professor in Core Studies Department
• Coordinator of Sociology and Community Development programs

Degrees Received

• B.A. from ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ in Philosophy and Political Science, 1997
• M.A. from ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ in Higher Education, 2003
• Ph.D. from Duquesne University in Philosophy, 2011

Courses Taught

• MAHE Graduate Program: Foundations of Higher Education; Foundations of Learning and Knowledge; Comparative Higher Education; Higher Education Practicum; and Historical Foundations of Higher Education
• Core Studies Department: Perspectives: Faith, Culture, Identity; Great Issues in Politics;  and Academic Faithfulness in the Young Scholars Program
• Undergraduate Program: Faith, Culture, Identity; Society; Social Change; and Urban Design and Public Art 

Selected Presentations/Publications

• “Contextualized Wisdom and Abstract Technique,” Grove City College (January 2023)
• "Narrative and Place: An Environmental Phenomenology of the Subject,” Bitar Memorial Lecture Keynote (ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ, 2021)
• Dreaming Dreams for Christian Higher Education, Dev Editor/Pub, Falls City Press, Aug 2021.
• Reimagining the Student Experience, Afterword (Abilene University Press, 2019)
• “Placelessness and Mimetic Engulfment in Wilshire’s The Moral Collapse of the University,” Baylor University’s Symposium on Faith and Culture, (Baylor University, October 2019)
• "Re:Imagining," in Reimagining the Student Experience: Formative Practices for Changing
  Times, Abilene Christian University Press, 2019.
• Advancing the Vision (Beaver Falls: Falls City Press), ed. Watt and Backensto, December 2019.
• “The Next 150: The Future of Higher Education in Canada,” Keynote Address, Canadian Association for Christians in Student Development, 2017.
• “Enframing Higher Education: A Consideration of Heidegger’s ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ and Higher Education,” Baylor Symposium on Faith an Culture, 2016.
• Dissertation: “The Narrative Subject and Place," Duquesne University, 2011.
• Review: Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement, Steven Bauma-Prediger and Brian J. Walsh, Christian Scholars Review, April 2009.
• "Descartes and the Dissolution of Aristotelian Place," West Chester University Philosophical Society, 2007.
• "Longinus′ Peri Hypsous: Third Century Catalyst of the Je ne sais quois," May 4th Philosophy Graduate Student Conference, Kent State Ohio, 2006.
• "Edenic Tales, the Revealing of Sexuality, and Pornographic Enframing: Toward a Heideggerian Understanding of Human Sexuality," GSIP Colloquia Series, Duquesne University, 2006.
• "On Academic Revival," Comment Magazine, March 2006
• "Building Monuments: Enacting Ritual, Retaining Memory," National Conference on Outdoor Leadership, San Diego State University, 2006
• On Mission Together (Beaver Falls: Falls City Press), Richard Noble.

Awards

• “Excellence in Teaching Award,” ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ (Fall 2023)

• “Excellence in Scholarship Award,” ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ (Fall 2021)

• “Staff Member of the Year,” ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ, Student Affairs (Spring 2012)

Current Projects

• I am currently part of a multi-disciplinary group considering how our fields interact with and impact the old steel town in which our college is emplaced. As an environmental phenomenologist and worker in the field of higher education, I am particularly interested in the interface of learning and location—I desire to help students and practitioners understand a deeper, richer, and more robust sense of a place-based education.
• The confluence of my interests in twentieth-century philosophy, reformational thought, and higher education has compelled me to consider the role of power and institutions. A primary concern is the history and role of governance within the realm of higher learning. This is includes an exploration of the normative structure of education through Dooeyweerd′s conception of modal aspects and the cosmonomic idea.

Miscellaneous

• Kristie has been my friend and wife for over twenty years. After having worked for 25 years in campus ministry and orchestrating diversity efforts at ºÃÉ«ÊÓƵ, she now works as a real estate agent in the County and also contributes to the thriving of Beaver Falls by sitting on our Community Development Corporation board. My son Gavin is an avid fisherman, spending his free time on the banks of the Beaver and Ohio rivers. Simone attends Kenyon College, her mom's alma mater, where she studies film, philosophy, and sociology.