Professor, School of Education
Director of Secondary Social Studies Education
I have been married to my wife, Heather, since 1995 and we have two children, both named after historical figures.
I graduated from PBU in 1994 and then served as a high school history teacher in Central Virginia for twelve years.
In 2005 I was awarded the Lynchburg City “Teacher of the Year.” I am thankful for the impact my students
have had on my career and on my family. While living in VA I became an avid mountain trail runner, enjoying over 20
extreme ultra-running races (distances of 30+ miles on trails and mountains). The experience of being alone on trails
with breath-taking panoramas makes it a very spiritual endeavor! Recently, I ran my annual birthday run (38 miles)
on the trails at Bald-Pate Mountain Nature Preserve and the Delaware-Ruritan Canal Path in New Jersey.
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October 18, 2009
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Last night several students, colleagues, and my wife and I met for dinner and to discuss this 1968 novel by Philip K. Dick. The choice of this book was to begin thinking about technology and its impact. On November 7, the university will be hosting iChristian: How Technology Impacts a Biblical Worldview conference. The novel was appropriate for the questions technology poses. We had to contend with the questions What is a human? Can a person be a human with android qualities? Can the idea of death make us more aware of our humanity? Does technology dehumanize us? Is electronic or virtual beauty any less beautiful than beauty produced by a living person? Can it be more beautiful?
Our next meeting will be on November 21. We will be reading and discussing The Abolition of Man by CS Lewis. You’re invited!
October 12, 2009
Leif Erikson Appreciation Day
During the spring semester I taught geography, in which one focus was the “power of place” and the questions that stem from where we are raised. I later received an email from a student, explaining how her summer cross- country travels brought a greater understanding of the conversations we had in class. She wrote, I drove across the corn fields of Kansas thinking about how vast the prairies must have seemed to all the families on the Oregon Trail. The storms in the distance were sobering as I tried to think of being in one of them with no protection. As I entered the state of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains began appearing in the distance I thought of Lewis and Clarke and their first discovery of the mountains. Whoa, how overwhelmed they must have been. I was overwhelmed driving up into them and I had already lived in them for years.
I replied to her that when we travelled to and from Wisconsin I would also be looking out the window with new lenses due to the same conversations in class. Since fall break extended our weekend for travelling home, we decided to go around the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and through Ontario, Canada.
Here are some of our traveling highlights. Each of these enhanced our understanding of the diverse topography and culture of the US and Canada. If you ever have a chance to take the same course, we highly recommend it!
Northeast Wisconsin – isolated and beautifully wild, incredible foliage, cheese curds, driving through snow squalls in early October, and seeing a snow plow for railways
Rural Michigan – getting gas alongside a motorcade of four-wheelers, colorful foliage
Upper Peninsula, Michigan – fall foliage on the left and expansive Lake Michigan on the right … absolutely stunning, picturesque lighthouses dotting the shoreline
Norway, Michigan – Leif Erikson Appreciation Day (instead of Columbus Day) and the Viking ship to welcome visitors
Mackinaw City, Michigan – the bridge connecting the two parts of Michigan … an engineering marvel.
Frankenmuth, Michigan – Bavarian culture and architecture, Oktoberfest, Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland
Thanksgiving Day in Canada- Enjoy the holiday, eh?
Niagara Falls, Ontario – being soaked by the mist, the thunderous noise, tremendous power
Upstate New York and Pennsylvania – foliage, foliage, foliage!
Home, sweet Home- Journey’s End, at last
October 7, 2009
An Encore of “To Autumn” by John Keats
Last year I titled my fall break blog “Reflections on To Autumn by John Keats”. Last year I spent fall break admiring the changing colors in around the tri-state area of Philadelphia.
This year the poem was intensified as we spent the last several days in upstate Wisconsin. On Wednesday, I spent the afternoon circling the trails around Lake Hildebrand and Rock Lake, trail systems several miles from campus, with Mark Jalovick and six of the WWC students. As we ran the trails, we couldn’t help but celebrate God’s creation and artistry. I am amazed by the multi-faceted explosion of the colors that seem to have peaked in just a few days. The sun, glistening off leaves, enhanced the experience. I was reminded of Keat’s poem and thought it needed an encore reference.
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
October 4, 2009
The American Birkebeiner: Ready to ski the Greatest Show on Snow?
I arrived with my family at our Wisconsin Wilderness Campus in Cable, Wisconsin on Sunday. On my previous visit, I missed the chance to run a historic course, sticking instead to the Telemark and Rock Lake Trails. The Birkebeiner is a world-renowned 50K ski race celebrating the rescue of a Norwegian prince in the early 13th century. Last year the director of the campus, Mark Jalovick, a multi-year finisher, insisted that I run the famous cross country ski trail. Within minutes of arriving this year, Mark invited me to run part of the trail as he rode his mountain bike. I consented without anticipating how challenging and exhausting the constant undulation of the trail would be, especially the grade. I was pleased to have run on a piece of Nordic history and tried to imagine the many students who skied the famous course. Mark, thank you!
Ja, Vi Elsker Dette Landet
Chicago
I have sought to visit Chicago for years. I have studied the architecture of Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. I have viewed scenes of people running along Lake Shore Drive and had pictured the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave). I envisioned the height of the Sears Tower. My dream finally came true on Saturday.
Last year when we journeyed to the North Woods of Wisconsin to PBU’s Wilderness campus, we went around the Windy City. This year we drove through the heart of Chicago. I dropped my wife and children off at Navy Pier and the Chicago Children’s Museum. Due to a festival of some sort, there was no parking on or near the pier. Ready for a run, I drove north along Lake Michigan for several miles until I found parking. I began a jaunt south along the famous running route. On my return, I detoured through the city, enjoying the iconic architecture before joining my family in the museum.
As I returned to the car I marveled at the city, contemplating Carl Sandburg’s poem, Chicago. How fitting!
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
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