Education
1990 Ph.D. in English, Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
1980 M.A. in English, University of Kansas.
1978 B.A. in English/Philosophy, Tabor College (Kan.)

Dissertation
The Late Victorian and Edwardian Novel and the Birth of Liberal Guilt. Committee: Irving Howe (director), Felicia Bonaparte, Morris Dickstein. (1990)

Work Experience
3/2006-present Lecturer, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies, M.A. Literature program.
9/2013-5/2020 Adjunct instructor, Dominican University (River Forest, Ill.), Department of English; liberal arts seminars; first-year seminar advisor.
9/2010-12/2013 Academic Chair, School of Legal Studies, Kaplan University: supervision of writing-intensive courses and capstones.
7/2005-8/2010 Vice President for Post-Secondary Programs; editor, The Common Review. The Great Books Foundation, Chicago, Illinois.
1/2003-6/2005 Director of Post-Secondary Programs; editor, The Common Review. The Great Books Foundation.
8/2001-12/2002 Editor, The Common Review; chief of staff, the Great Books Foundation.
9/1991-8/2001 Associate professor of English, Marietta College: British novel, Victorian literature, honors English, Bible as literature, creative writing. (Tenured in 1996).
8/90-8/91 Adjunct assistant professor of humanities, State University of New York Maritime College; Writing Center Director.
8/88-8/90 Graduate assistant instructor of English, Queens College of the City University of New York.
8/82-2/89 Manager, Madison Avenue Logos Bookstore, New York City.
1/81-7/82 Bookseller, Logos of Chicago Bookstore, Chicago.
9/80-12/80 Clerk, Kroch’s and Brentano’s Bookstore, Wabash Avenue, Chicago.
8/79-5/80 Assistant instructor of English, University of Kansas.
8/78-11/78 Reporter, University Daily Kansan, University of Kansas daily newspaper.
1/78-7/78 Editorial assistant, The Christian Leader (Hillsboro, Kan.), Mennonite Brethren denominational magazine.
8/76-5/77 Editor, Tabor College View, biweekly student newspaper.

Publications

Books:
Unpardonable Sins (novel), 2021. Wipf and Stock Publishers. Co-authored with Dale Suderman, published under the pen name David Saul Bergman.
Vital Ideas. Vols. 1-4: Crime; Money; Sex; Work. Series editor. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2011.
The Great Books Foundation Science Fiction Omnibus. Co-edited with Peter Ponzio and Donald Whitfield. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2010.
Even Deadlier: A Sequel to The Seven Deadly Sins Sampler. Co-edited with Molly Benningfield, Abigail Mitchell, Judith McCue, Lindsay Tigue, and Donald Whitfield. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2009.
The Great Books Foundation Short Story Omnibus. Co-edited with Donald Whitfield and Judith McCue. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2009.
Great Conversations 4. Co-edited with Donald Whitfield. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2008.
The Seven Deadly Sins Sampler. Co-edited with Donald Whitfield and Mike Levine. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2007.
Great Conversations 3. Co-edited with Donald Whitfield and Mike Levine. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2007.
Great Conversations 2. Co-edited with Donald Whitfield. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2006.
Great Conversations 1. Co-edited with Donald Whitfield. Chicago: The Great Books Foundation, 2004.
The Birth of Liberal Guilt in the English Novel: Charles Dickens to H. G. Wells. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

Chapters and articles:
“Rethinking Office Hours in the Online University.” Coauthored with Penny Lorenzo, Meegan Zickus, Cynthia Middleton, and Elaine Deering. Contemporary Trends and Issues in Teaching Languages in Schools and Higher Education (2013). Chuvash State University of Pedagogy: Cheboksar, Russia.
“Utopian Civic-Mindedness: Robert Maynard Hutchins, Mortimer Adler, and the Great Books Enterprise.” In Reading Communities from Salons to Cyberspace, ed. DeNel Rehberg Sedo. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011: 81-100.
“From Cross to Cross-Stitch: The Ascendancy of the Quilt.” Mennonite Quarterly Review (Apr. 2005): 179-190.
“Private Gardens, Public Swamps: Howards End and the Revaluation of Liberal Guilt.” Reprinted in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism 125 (2003): 136-146.
“Sacred Noise in Don DeLillo’s Fiction.” Literature and Theology 13 (Sept. 1999): 211-221.
“Private Gardens, Public Swamps: Howards End and the Revaluation of Liberal Guilt.” Reprinted in
E. M. Forster, Howards End, Norton Critical Edition, ed. Paul B. Armstrong. New York: Norton, 1998.
Preface to Chapter 3, “Cattle Call: The Academic Conference and Interview,” in On the Market: Ph.Ds Tell Their Stories of the Academic Job Search, ed. Christina Boufis and Victoria Olsen. New York: Riverhead Books, 1997.
“’Leadership Studies’: A Critical Appraisal.” In Teaching Leadership: Essays in Theory and Practice, ed. Peter Temes. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.
“Nonviolence and Nationalism in Leigh Hunt’s Early Liberal Rhetoric.” Nineteenth-Century Prose 23 (Spring 1996): 25-39.
“Private Gardens, Public Swamps: Howards End and the Revaluation of Liberal Guilt.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 25 (Winter 1992): 141-159.
“Echoes of Kipling in Marlow’s ‘Privileged Man’?” Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies 24 (Summer 1992): 100-115.
“Character as Perception: Science Fiction and the Christian Man of Faith.” Extrapolation (Fall 1983): 251-271.

Reviews:
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, by Nathan Englander (Knopf, 2012). Wisconsin People & Ideas, Spring 2012.
Walker in the Fog: Reflections on Mennonite Writing, by Jeff Gundy (Cascadia Press, 2005). Mennonite Quarterly Review, 2006.
Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War, by Allen J. Frantzen (U of Chicago P, 2004). The Christian Century, 24 Aug. 2004: 38-39.
Myths America Lives By, by Richard T. Hughes (U of Illinois P, 2003). The Christian Century, 13 Jan. 2004: 32-33.
Secular Steeples: Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination, by Conrad Ostwalt (Trinity Press International, 2003). The Christian Century, 29 Nov. 2003.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, by Jon Krakauer (Doubleday, 2003). The Christian Century, 18 October 2003: 38-43.
The Amish in the American Imagination, by David Weaver-Zercher (Johns Hopkins U P, 2001). The Christian Century, 14 June 2003: 40-41.
The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life, by Julia Kasdorf (Johns Hopkins U P, 2001). Mennonite Quarterly Review, Oct. 2002.
The Insistence of History: Revolution in Burke, Wordsworth, Keats, and Baudelaire, by Geraldine Friedman (Stanford U P, 1996). Nineteenth-Century Prose 25 (Fall 1998): 147-151.
A Year of Lesser, by Gordon Bergman (HarperCollins, 1996). Mennonite Quarterly Review, Oct. 1998: 693-694.
The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World, by Hernando de Soto. Marketplace (Winnipeg), July/Aug. 1989.
The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by Paul Kennedy. BM04 (CUNY Graduate Center newspaper), Apr. 1988.
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco. Sojourners, Jan. 1984.
A Flag for Sunrise, by Robert Stone. Sojourners, May 1982.

Short stories:
“Glassware.” Fiction, Spring 1989.
“Consecrated.” The Other Side, July 1986.
“The Strange and Wonderful Burial of Chester’s Dog.” Sojourners, Jan. 1982.

Other:
“Who’s Your (Lit Crit) Daddy?” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 Aug. 2014: B20.
“Attention, Pentagon Lit Majors,” The Common Review, Summer 2010.
“Husband walks for wife’s cure,” Daily Herald, 28 Apr. 2010, www.dailyherald.com/story/print/?id=376692
“What Is the Crisis in the Humanities?” The Common Review, Spring 2010.
“Great Books for a Planet in Trouble,” The Common Review, Winter 2010.
“Libertarian Fantasies on the Reading Front,” The Common Review, Fall 2009.
“True Confessions,” The Common Review, Summer 2009.
“Claiming My Pork,” The Common Review, Spring 2009.
“The Other Adam Smith,” The Common Review, Winter 2009.
“The Hummer Era,” The Common Review, Fall 2008.
“Learning How to Learn,” Forbes.com, 14 Aug. 2008.
“The Memoirs We Need,” The Common Review, Summer 2008.
“A Manifesto for the Common Reader,” The Common Review, Spring 2008.
“Running the Foxes,” The Common Review, Winter 2008.
“The Liberal Bogeyman Goes to Antioch,” The Common Review, Fall 2007.
“Coin of the Realm: Writing About Money,” The Common Review, Summer 2007.
“Character and Criminality,” The Common Review, Spring 2007.
“Essential Wartime Reading,” The Common Review, Winter 2007.
“Turning Five,” The Common Review, Fall 2006.
“In the Penal Colonies,” The Common Review, Summer 2006.
“Scientists and Literalists,” The Common Review, Spring 2006.
“Sacred Terror and Holy Texts: The Closing of the Literal Mind,” The Common Review, Winter 2006.
“The Joy of Reading: Is Reading for Pleasure an Outdated Idea?” Utne, Nov.-Dec. 2005.
“My Father and Muhammad Ali,” The Common Review, Fall 2005.
“Provocation Unbound,” The Common Review, Summer 2005.
“Call of the Pheasant,” The Common Review, Spring 2005.
“Putting the Pleasure Back,” The Common Review, Winter 2005.
Discussion guides to The Gangster We Are All Looking For, by Lê Thi Diem Thúy; Waiting for Snow in Havana, by Carlos Eire; The Tree Bride, by Bharati Mukherjee (Chicago Humanities Festival XV).
“How to be American After Abu Ghraib,” The Common Review, Fall 2004.
“Bad Men and Good Books,” The Common Review, Spring 2004
“Words and Flesh,” The Common Review, Winter 2004.
“In Defense of Almost Great Books,” The Common Review, Fall 2003.
“Poets and Warriors,” The Common Review, Spring 2003.
Discussion guide to Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie, Penguin Books web site.
“All Shook Up,” The Common Review, Winter 2003.
Discussion guide to Thinks…, by David Lodge, Penguin Books web site, September 2002.
“Science’s Dance with Metaphor,” The Common Review, Fall 2002.
“Etiquette and Ethics in the Plagiarism Hall of Fame,” The Common Review, Spring 2002.
“Beating and Starving Them . . . And Other Ways of Teaching,” Education Week, 27 Mar. 2002.
Discussion guide to Libra, by Don DeLillo. Penguin Books web site, Mar. 2002.
“Ruins and Remains,” The Common Review, Winter 2002.
“The Innocent Skyline,” The New York Times, 22 Sept. 2001, Op-Ed essay.
“Democratize the Sublime,” The Common Review, Fall 2001.
Marietta College Style Manual: A Guide to Writing. Marietta College Faculty Development Committee, 1994.
Letter to the Editor, Newsweek, 11 Mar. 1991, response to Feb. 11 story, “Ancient Theory and Modern War.”

Presentations:
“Don Juan at 200: What Liberalism Was, and Could Be.” Byron’s Don Juan 200: A Bicentennial Symposium. DePaul University, Chicago, 18 October 2019.
“Dominican Styles of Midwestern Nice: Implications for Our Classrooms and Culture,” with co-authors Emily Bochniak and Mariam Gabriel, Caritas Veritas Symposium, Dominican University, River Forest, Illinois. 25 September 2018.
Plenary address, Association of Professors of Mission Conference, University of Northwestern, St. Paul, Minnesota. “Great Books and Missionary Fictions.” 20 June 2014.
“Rethinking Office Hours in the Online University.” 19th Annual Sloan Consortium International Conference on Online Learning. Lake Buena Vista, Florida, 22 November 2013.
Keynote speaker, ACTC (Association for Core Texts and Courses) Undergraduate Conference, Shimer College, Chicago. “From Couch to Computer: Dare We Take Plato Online?” 8 March 2013.
Moderator, online webinar with Jane McElligott and Victoria Corbo, Kaplan University School of Legal Studies. “Spotlight on Law & Society (LS308) and Legal Philosophy (LS490),” 22 February 2012.
Co-presenter with Margaret Hermes and Janice Wendel, “Crime and Punishment as Theme in Legal Studies Composition Courses,” Kaplan University GenEd Conference, 7 June 2011.
Participant, roundtable panel, University of California-Irvine Humanities Center, “Publishing & the Academy,” 19 Feb. 2009.
“What Do We Reflect When We’re Reflecting?” Symposium presentation for “Naming the Goods: The Case for Reflective Discourse in a Democracy.” University of Chicago, 10-11 Oct. 2008.
“A Manifesto for the Endangered Reader.” Panel on “The Endangered Species: Readers Today and Tomorrow.” Oxford Conference for the Book, University of Mississippi, 5 Apr. 2008.
“Recent Books.” Milt Rosenberg talk show, WGN Radio Chicago, AM 720, 24 Mar. 2008.
“From Bombs to Classics: The Curious History of the Great Books Idea.” Bethel College (Kan.) convocation presentation, 24 Sept. 2007.
Milt Rosenberg talk show, interview segment with William Craig Rice, president of Shimer College, and Claire Pearson, director of the Basic Program at the University of Chicago, WGN Radio Chicago, AM 720, 20 Feb. 2007.
Milt Rosenberg talk show, interview segment with William Craig Rice, President, Shimer College, WGN Radio Chicago, AM 720, 2 Feb. 2006.
“Of Books and Bombs: The Making of Robert Maynard Hutchins.” Shimer College Fall Convocation address, 15 Oct. 2005.
“Thinking About Shared Inquiry: Principles, Dogma, Heresy.” Association for Core Texts and Courses conference, Vancouver, 8 Apr. 2005.
“Chicago Literature.” Lecture and teaching workshop for Chicago Public School teachers, Terra Museum of American Art (“The Arts of Chicago, 1893-1945”), 16 Oct. 2004.
Poetry reading, Midwest Literary Festival, Aurora, Illinois, 11 Sept. 2004.
“Top Political Novels.” Eight Forty-Eight program, hosted by Al Gini, WBEZ Public Radio, 17 June 2004.
“Two Funerals and a Wedding: Mortimer Adler’s Syntopicon and Melville’s Billy Budd.” Association for Core Texts and Courses conference, Dallas, Texas, 24 Apr. 2004.
“Editing My Professors, or Who’s My Daddy?” Ph.D. Program in English, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 19 Mar. 2004.
“Two Funerals and a Wedding, or Great Books and Bad Ideas: Mortimer Adler on Liberal Education.” University of Kansas Program in Western Civilization and Humanities, spring lecture, 25 Feb. 2004.
“Ten Classics Worth Re-Reading.” Eight Forty-Eight program, hosted by Al Gini, WBEZ Public Radio, 30 July 2003.
“To the Very Last Page.” Eight Forty-Eight program, hosted by Al Gini, WBEZ Public Radio, 2 January 2003.
“From Cross to Cross-Stitch: The Ascendancy of the Quilt.” Mennonite/s Writing conference, Goshen College (Ind.), 25 October 2002.
“The Core Text and Literary Theory.” Conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses, Montreal, 5 Apr. 2002.
“After Stephen Ambrose: Plagiarism in the Media and the Academy.” Participant, “Odyssey” program, hosted by Gretchen Helfrich, WBEZ Public Radio, Chicago, 17 Jan. 2002.
“Reading: Oprah Winfrey vs. Jonathan Franzen.” Panelist, “Chicago Tonight,” hosted by Phil Ponce, WTTW-TV Chicago, 1 Nov. 2001.
“How Books Get Talked About.” Panelist, discussion sponsored by the Center for Book Culture, the Great Books Foundation, and the Chicago Public Library. Harold Washington Library, 7 Oct. 2001.
“Decoding Sacrifice, Encoding Religion: The Paradox of René Girard.” Modern Language Association convention, Washington, D.C., 28 Dec. 2000.
“From Wilfred Owen to Tim O’Brien: Loving the Warrior, Hating the War.” Writing the Vietnam War Into Literature: Reflections on the Past Quarter Century. Conference at Marietta College, 22 May 1999.
“Religion in Don DeLillo’s Fiction.” Ninth International Conference on Religion and Literature, Westminster College, Oxford, England, 11 Sept. 1998.
“Unmaking the Victorian Writer: Critical Acts of Silencing, 1895-1911.” Midwest Victorian Studies Association conference, St. Paul, Minnesota, 24 Apr. 1998.
“Wired for Books: Community Reconsidered: the Stories of Raymond Carver.” Guest scholar, WOUB (1340 AM) radio, Athens, Ohio, 25 May 1997.
“Treating the Bible as a Secular Literary Text: Implications for Methodology”; “Raymond Carver and the Religious Imagination.” Colloquium guest speaker for the Fresno Pacific University English and religion departments, Claremont, Calif., 13-14 Sept. 1996.
“Debunking and Desiring: Fool as Visionary Leader in Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Leadership and Scholarship? Conference, Stetson University, 3 Feb. 1996.
“The Equator.” Fiction reading, Blennerhassett Reading Series, Parkersburg, W. Va., 1 May 1995.
“Disciplinary Claims, Communitarian Values: Appraising Leadership Studies Today.” Leadership Symposium, Harvard University, 20 Jan. 1995.
“Nationalism and Nonviolence in Leigh Hunt’s Early Liberal Rhetoric.” Philological Association of the Pacific Coast conference, Univ. of Washington, 6 Nov. 1993.
“After Civic Virtue: Directions for Leadership.” Conference on Leadership and the Liberal Arts, Marietta College, 17 Apr. 1993.
“Leigh Hunt and Nonviolence: The Development of a Liberal.” NEH Summer Seminar, Johns Hopkins University, 30 June 1992.
“Glassware”; “Almost Already.” Fiction reading, Marietta College faculty forum, 3 Apr. 1992.
“Mansfield Park: The Monsters and the Critics.” Practical Criticism IV, CUNY Graduate Center English Department, 27 Oct. 1989.
“Popularity and the Precepts of Literary Canon: The Secret Agent as Spy Thriller.” Graduate Student conference on Practical Criticism, CUNY Graduate Center, 9 Oct. 1987.
Conference panel chair/session leader:
“From Individuals Through Cultures Through Worlds: The Powers of the Novel.” Session chair, Association for Core Texts and Courses conference, New Brunswick, N.J., 16 Apr. 2010.
“Therapeutic Texts.” Session chair, Association for Core Texts and Courses conference, Memphis, Tenn., 17 Apr. 2009.
“An Enduring Idea: The Great Books Movement.” Panel moderator for Alex Beam, Earl Shorris, and Eva Brann, Chicago Humanities Festival, 9 Nov. 2008.
“Iliad, Poem of War?” Moderator for James Redfield and David Tracy dialogue, Chicago Humanities Festival, 12 Nov. 2006.
“The Tyranny of Method in Teaching Core Texts: Orthodoxy or Apostasy?” Conference of the Association for Core Texts and Courses, Vancouver, 8-10 Apr. 2005.
“Orwell at 100: What Would George Do?” Panel organizer and moderator, Chicago Humanities Festival, 8 Nov. 2003.
“Sacrifice and Its Interpreters: After Girard.” Session sponsored by the MLA Division for Literature and Religion. Modern Language Association convention, Washington, D.C., 28 Dec. 2000.
“Tim O’Brien: Writing the Vietnam War into Literature: Reflections on the Past Quarter Century.” Conference organizer, Marietta College, 21-22 May 1999.
“Revolution and Religion.” Session sponsored by the MLA Division for Literature and Religion. Modern Language Association convention, San Francisco, 29 Dec. 1998.
“Biographies of God: Teaching Sacred Texts as Literature.” Session sponsored by the MLA Division for Literature and Religion. Modern Language Association convention, Toronto, 29 Dec. 1997.
“Re-Appraising Romantic Nationalism(s).” South Central Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference, University of Central Oklahoma, 1 Mar. 1997.

Departmental, College, and Professional Service:
Freelance copyeditor, The Quarto Group: mass market fiction. Jan. 2015 - Feb. 2017.
Review panelist, for the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Dialogues on the Experience of War,” Washington, D.C., 23 November 2015.
Co-chair (with Emily Zivin), HDSA Illinois 2016 state convention: “Heredity and HD: New Frontiers,” Hilton Hotel, Northbrook, Illinois, 12 March 2016.
President, Huntington’s Disease Society of America-Illinois Chapter, 2015.
Chair, HDSA (Huntington’s Disease Society of America) Illinois 2015 state convention: “Living Today, Planning Tomorrow.” Hilton Hotel, Northbrook, Illinois, 21 March 2015.
Chair, HDSA Illinois 2014 state convention: “Converging Paths in Treating Huntington’s Disease.” Hilton Hotel, Northbrook, Illinois, 22 March 2014.
Team Leader, MSLS Program (2013), Kaplan University, in preparation for Higher Learning Commission visit.
Chair, HDSA Illinois 2013 state convention: “How Do We Tell the HD Story?” Hilton Hotel, Northbrook, Illinois, 9 March 2013. |
Chair, HDSA Illinois 2012 state convention: “Raising Our Voices to Silence the Gene.” Hilton Hotel, Northbrook, Illinois, 10 March 2012.
Committee member, Kaplan University Academic Report Working Group, 2011.
Lead Evaluator, Quality Enhancement Plan of the On-Site Review Committee, Paine College. Commission on Colleges, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Augusta, Georgia, 4-6 October, 2010.
Peer reviewer for the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Enduring Questions” Pilot Grants, February 2009.
Testimony to the Advisory Committee of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on the effectiveness of Tetrabenazine in the treatment of symptoms related to Huntington’s Disease, 7 December 2007, Beltsville, Maryland.
Lecturer, Northwestern University School of Professional Studies, M.A. literature program, 2006-present: Introduction to Graduate Study (2014-2017); The Victorian Novel and Its Afterlife (spring 2012); Large Romanticism (spring 2011); Literature 405-0: Victorian Decadence: British Literature of the 1890s (fall 2009, fall 2012, spring 2018, fall 2020); English 461-0: Lost in Transition: The Edwardian Novel (spring 2008, winter 2020); English 451-0: English Romanticism: Roots and Rebels, (spring 2007); Post-World War II American Novel and the Theological Imagination (spring 2006, fall 2008, winter 2019).
Board member, Huntington’s Disease Society of America, Illinois Chapter, 2005-2015.
Conference organizer (with Ned Cramer, Curator, Chicago Architecture Foundation): “The Architect in Troubled Times: Mies and the Making of Modernism,” Illinois Institute of Technology, 4 June 2005.
Discussion leader, Art and Literature program, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago (Algren, Cheever, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Ginsberg, Hemingway, Pound, Stein, Updike), 2003-2004.
Panelist, “How to Read a Poem,” Midwest Literary Festival, Aurora, Illinois, 11 Sept. 2004.
Organizer, panel on “Celebrating Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man,” Chicago Humanities Festival, 2 Nov. 2002.
Advisory board member, The Public Square, Chicago, 2002-2011.
Planning committee member for “Intellectuals: Who Needs Them?” conference sponsored by The Public Square, University of Illinois-Chicago, 19-20 Apr. 2002.
Director of the Esbenshade Cultural Series and William R. and Marie Adamson Flesher Humanities Chair, Marietta College, 1999-2001.
Delegate, Modern Language Association division representative, 1998-2000.
Member, MLA Executive Division on Literature and Religion, 1996-2001.
Volunteer, creative writing instructor for Talented & Gifted program, Washington Elementary School, 2nd and 3rd grade, Marietta (Ohio), 1998, 1999.
Member, Curriculum Review Task Force, Marietta College, spring 1999.
President, Parent-Teacher Organization, Washington Elementary School, Marietta (Ohio), 1998-1999.
Member, Library Planning Committee, Marietta College, 1997-1998.
Faculty sponsor, Arts and Humanities House, Marietta College, 1997-2001.
Faculty sponsor, Sigma Tau Delta English honorary, Marietta College, 1997-2000.
Interim Director of College Honors program, Marietta College, 1997.
Chair, Investigative Studies Committee, Marietta College, 1998.
Coordinator, Summer Writing Seminar, Marietta College, 1994, 1995, 1997.
Chair, Honors Council, Marietta College, 1994-95.
Campus coordinator for Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writing Fellows program with writers-in-residence Margaret Gibson and David McKain, spring and fall 1994.
Fiction editor, Confluence literary magazine, 1992-2000.
Director, Writing Center, SUNY Maritime College, 1990-91.
Graduate assistant instructors’ representative, Required Composition Committee, Queens College, 1989-90.
English Department representative, CUNY Doctoral Student Council, 1987-88.
Moderator, Lakeview Mennonite Brethren Church, Chicago, 1980-82.

Awards, Honors, and Grants:
2013 HDSA (Huntington’s Disease Society of America) Great Lakes Region Family of the Year award.
2011 Lundbeck Foundation grant ($8,000) for HDSA Illinois chapter state convention.
2010 Lundbeck Foundation grant ($8,000) for HDSA Illinois chapter state convention.
2009 Named by NewCity Chicago to “Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago.” (#39).
2007 Named by NewCity Chicago to “Lit 50: Who Really Books in Chicago.” (#44).
2006 Utne Independent Press Awards nomination of The Common Review, in the category of “Best Writing.”
2003 Utne Independent Press Awards nomination of The Common Review, in the category of “Arts/Literary Coverage.”
2001 Marietta College Greek Council Professor of the Year award.
1999-01 McCoy Award for Teaching Excellence, Marietta College.
1994-98 McCoy Award for Teaching Excellence, Marietta College.
1999 Ohio Humanities Council grant ($5000): “Tim O’Brien: Writing the Vietnam War into Literature: Reflections on the Past Quarter Century,” 21-22 May 1999, Marietta College.
1995 Ohio Campus Compact grant, $1500, for Chicago spring break urban studies course.
1994 Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Fund grant to fund Marietta College’s first writers-in-residence.
1992 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar grant: Johns Hopkins University, “Romanticism and the Triumph of Liberalism” (Director: Dr. Jerome Christensen).
1988 Comprehensive orals exam passed with distinction, CUNY Graduate Center.
1980 Selden Lincoln Whitcomb Fellowship for achievement in scholarship and teaching, University of Kansas.
1977 Humanities Divisional Award, Tabor College
1977 Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities

Undergraduate courses
(University of Kansas, CUNY Queens College, SUNY Maritime College, Marietta College, Dominican University)
English Composition (100, 101, 102, 190)
Liberal Arts Seminar (Junior Seminar), A Life’s Work
Technical Writing
College Experience Seminar: Science Fiction in Text and Film
British Literature Survey II
Introduction to Fiction
The Short Story and Popular Culture: Science Fiction, Horror, Action-Adventure
The Bible as Literature; Bible in Literature (sequence)
Concepts of Gender in Literature
Creative Writing
Shakespeare
English 294/Theatre 294: London spring break, England (1 credit)
English 394/Theatre 394: Theatre and Museum spring break, New York City (1 credit)
Leadership 293: Theories of Power and Leadership in Narrative
Chicago Field Experience spring break (1 credit)
Honors 193: First Year Scholars Seminar (1 credit)
Honors 293: Modernism and Postmodernism in 20th-century Literature and Art
Honors 301-302: The Great Books: Self, Society, and Freedom from Ancient to Modern Times
Liberal Arts & Sciences Seminar 319 (junior level): A Life’s Work
British Novel I (Defoe to Hardy)
British Novel II (Joyce to contemporary writers)
Romantics to Victorians: 19th-century British Literature
English 451: Senior Studies in English Literature (capstone)
Graduate courses (Northwestern University School of Professional Studies, M.A. Literature program):
Literature 410: Introduction to Graduate Study (winter 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
Literature 405-0: Victorian Decadence: British Literature of the 1890s (fall 2009, 2012, 2018)
Literature 405-0: The Afterlife of the Victorian Novel (spring 2012)
Literature 405-0: Large Romanticism (spring 2011)
English 471-0: Post World War II American Novel and the Theological Imagination (spring 2006; taught as Literature 492-0 in fall 2008, winter 2019).
English 451-0: English Romanticism: Roots and Rebels (spring 2007).
English 461-0: Lost in Transition: the Edwardian Novel (spring 2008; winter 2020).

M.A. thesis advisor (first reader) for Peter Ponzio, Rita Knupp, Hadley Ruggles, Carolyne Hurlburt (M.A. program distinguished thesis award), Mark Collins, Kathleen Harsy, Chad Lewis, Antonique Tyler, Rebecca Richardson, Alina Dix, Jeshua Enriquez, Andrew Johnson, Kendra Muntz, Emily Naser-Hall, Monica Skibbie, Cheryl May Boyle, Timothy Bryant, Jennifer Coakley (M.A. program distinguished thesis award).
Thesis second reader: Elizabeth Clare Juen, Harold Shipman, Kim Diorio, Adrianne Wojcik.

Fluent in Portuguese (lived in Brazil 1965-1974).