Education

• Ph.D., Texas Christian University
• M.A., Texas Christian University
• B.A., Pepperdine University

Courses Taught

Honors and Affiliations

• Distinguished Faculty Award, 2017
• Faculty Member of the Year, 2016
• Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award for Graduate Assistants, Texas Christian University, 1999
• Co-Valedictorian, Pepperdine University, 1987
• Alpha Chi national honor society
• Phi Alpha Theta history honor society
• Member, Organization of American Historians
• Member, Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
• Member, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations

International / Intercultural Service and Study

• Faculty sponsor for RCU’s Global Educational Opportunities (GEO) study-abroad programs: Vienna, Austria (2001, 2015, and 2019), Munich, Germany (2004), and Lake District/Oxford/London, England (2018).
• Faculty participant in field trip to Turkey sponsored by the Niagara Foundation. Featured various historical, religious, commercial, media, educational, and domestic venues, with emphasis on Turkish history, contemporary issues, and interfaith and intercultural understanding.
• Instructor of beginning English and cultural orientation for newly resettled Bosnian and Kurdish refugees in Fort Worth, Texas, 1997.
• Refugee Relief Coordinator and Program Liaison, Zagreb, Croatia, 1992-95. Working jointly with Manna International, Redwood City, California, and Kristova Crkva (Church of Christ), Zagreb, Croatia, I assessed and reported relief needs, evaluated project proposals, recruited international aid, and helped coordinate distribution of materials to refugees from the wars in former Yugoslavia.
• Archaeological excavation and study, Capernaum, Israel, summer 1986.
• Missionary internship, Lambton, Australia, summer 1985.
• Year-in-Europe Program, Pepperdine University, Heidelberg campus, Germany, 1984. Study-abroad program highlighting European history, art and culture, German language study, and travel throughout Europe

Other Professional and Academic Experience

• Consultant for Educational Testing Service’s CLEP, SAT, and Advanced Placement U.S. History programs (e.g., question writer, standards panelist, syllabus evaluator, and exam reader).
• Teacher Advisory Council member, Rochester Christian University.
• Instructor of History and Political Science, Columbia Christian College, Portland, Oregon, 1989-1992.

Publication / Presentation / Performance

• “‘Ark of Refuge’ or ‘Dumping-Ground’: Immigration and American Identity in the Gilded Age,” School of Humanities chapel series, Rochester University, March 2024.
• “The ‘Apocalyptic Tradition’ in Churches of Christ: A Countercultural Remembrance and Challenge,” published essay in Rochester Retrospect (Rochester Hills, MI: Rochester University, 2023).
• “The Genius of George Washington,” Smart Towns lecture series, Rochester Hills Museum, Rochester Hills, Michigan, November 2019.
• “‘To Lead in the Regeneration of the World’: American Identity and Imperialism in the Gilded Age,” Smart Towns lecture series, Rochester College, June 2017.
• “Founding Ideals and Political Realities: Presidential Elections, Parties, and Popularity in the Early American Republic,” Presidential Lecture Series, Rochester Hills Museum, September 2016.
• “The French Revolution on Trial,” presentation in “Loose Baggy Monsters: A Workshop in the Humanities,” Rochester College, April 2016.
• “Manifest Destiny, Social Darwinism, and American National Identity on the Eve of World Power,” Faculty Symposium, Rochester College, March 2011.
• “George Washington: The Man Who Would Not be King,” Rochester Hills Museum Presidential Lecture Series, September 2008.
• Commentator and panelist for public presentation of the documentary film Theologians under Hitler, Rochester College, November 2006.
• “Nathan Hale, William Hull, and the Contested Meaning of Honor in the American Revolution,” Cascade College, Portland, Oregon, October 2003.
• “History as an Antidote to Sectionalism: Benson J. Lossing and his Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812,” Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Conference, Corpus Christi, Texas, March 1998.
• Review of David Curtis Skaggs and Gerard T. Altoff, A Signal Victory: The Lake Erie Campaign, 1812-1813 (1997), in New York History 79, no. 4 (October 1998).
• “Oregon Territory” and “U.S. Territories,” in Donald S. Frazier, ed., The United States and Mexico at War: Nineteenth-Century Expansionism and Conflict (New York: Macmillan, 1998).
• “Poltroon or Patriot? Traitor or Scapegoat?: The Evolving Reputation of General William Hull,” Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, April 1997.
• “Payoff, Punishment, or Policy?: An Examination of President Jackson’s Removal of William Henry Harrison as Minister to Colombia,” Southwestern Social Science Association Annual Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana, March 1997.
• “‘A Hound on the Scent of a Hare’: William Henry Harrison, John Quincy Adams, and the Politics of Patronage,” Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, October 1996.

Personal

Having lived in Texas, California, Oregon, Germany, and Croatia for extensive periods before moving to Michigan in 1999, I came to better understand connections between history, faith, and culture, and to value intercultural-international engagement. My work in Croatia in the early 1990s proved especially significant, not only because of vivid lessons that the wars of former Yugoslavia presented, but because it was there that I met, worked alongside, and married my wife, Branka, who continues to bless my life each day. We enjoy many things, perhaps especially traveling and conversation with friends over coffee. I like watching and still, a bit, playing sports (all non-contact at this stage of life). I enjoy games and puzzles, leisure walking and hiking, reading, singing and playing guitar (though my repertoire is now, shall we say, “vintage”), and a sense of humor. I deeply value learning but am most inspired by kindness, compassion, resilient joy, and reconciliation. I rejoice in God’s patient, steadfast love and hope to reflect it.