Saint Michael's College

Title: Professor of Religious Studies; College Dean

Education: B.A. Vanderbilt University; M.A., Ph.D. University of Chicago

Areas of Expertise/Research Interests: Jewish sectarian logic and ideology--i.e., what makes Jewish sects (like the early Christian movement, the Essenes, or the 17th century Shabbateans) tick? Can a study of these movements side by side shed more light on them than a study of any one of them in isolation?

Testimonial: I remember teaching a sophomore woman who had horrible writer's block, froze up during exams and was deathly afraid of public speaking. Two and a half years later, I witnessed her senior thesis presentation: she was knowledgeable, articulate, poised and full of self-confidence. Some kind of magic took place during those years, and I credit her experiences at Saint Michael's, both inside and outside the classroom.

What do you like most about teaching/working at Saint Michael's College? I enjoy watching light bulbs go off as the students study something that they think they know, (such as the Bible and early Christianity) but which has dimensions they never realized before.

What do you like about Saint Michael's students? I find the students quite adventuresome and willing to try out new ideas. They tend to be very polite and down-to-earth, without a great deal of pretension. They are also a generally friendly and accepting bunch, with only a few exceptions that I've run across in my 19 years here.

What is your favorite class to teach, and why? I'm only teaching one class per year now that I'm Dean, so that one is always my favorite! But if I had to choose, I guess I'd say Old Testament, since that's the foundation of all the other subjects I study. The New Testament and later Jewish traditions consist largely of commentary on the Hebrew Bible, and they cannot be understood apart from it.

What kinds of unique opportunities are available to students in your classes or department? In my classes, students get to examine seemingly familiar material from new points of view that can be quite disconcerting. To me, that's an essential hallmark of a quality liberal arts education.

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