2022-2023 Professorial Lecture

Martin and the Movies: Exploring the Lutheran Confessions with Film

Richard Wolff, Ph.D.

(Department of Communication & Visual Arts)

Martin Luther advocated for and used the arts of his day to teach religious concepts.  How might we use his approach to teach about faith using film? The talk will share Luther’s thoughts about using visual and dramatic arts to teach religion and how one can apply these to the cinema. The application of visual and dramatic arts to highlight articles of faith is part of a broader project that interprets movies via Lutheran theology. The result is an in-depth case study exploring Lutheran ideas about repentance, confession, and forgiveness via four films.

Self, Community, Spirit: The Discipline of Wholehearted Listening

Allison Schuette, MFA

(Department of English)

What does it mean to give yourself wholeheartedly to work and collaborations whose fruit you cannot know ahead of time? For me, it has meant uncovering the range, capacity, and transformative power of listening. Whether listening to self, other, community or spirit, there is an art and craft to this discipline, which illuminates the value of taking risks in the good company of others.

Explorations in Early Christian Wholistic Care”

Lisa Driver, Ph.D.

(Department of Philosophy & Theology)

Often blinkered by recent (past 300 years or so!) siloing of physical well-being and medicine from soul well-being and spirituality, we struggle to foster integrated well-being for individuals and communities.  What happens when we start rediscovering the complex, ancient approaches of Christians as they aimed at multidimensional human wellness?

Weather in Code: Building Tools, Visualizing Data, Engaging Students”

Kevin H. Goebbert, Ph.D.

(Department of Geography & Meteorology)

Codes have a long history within meteorology in order to be able to communicate vast amounts of information in an efficient manner. These codes have made it possible for meteorologists to decode what is happening in the atmosphere and allow us to make predictions of the future based on data. This talk will briefly explore the history of how codes have been used in the meteorological field and their power in unlocking the mysteries of the atmosphere. Additionally, I’ll talk about my journey to helping build modern computing tools to better visualize and analyze atmospheric data and how it is used to engage our students and keep them at the forefront of our atmospheric and related sciences

Lessons from the Field: Heritage Tourism and the Experience Economy in Kyoto

Jennifer Prough, Ph.D.

(Department of Humanities & East Asian Studies)

 Focusing on research from my recent book Kyoto Revisited, I will discuss how this city sought to market experiences of heritage—history and culture—to both domestic and international tourists from roughly 2012-2020 and how they have tried to continue the experiential turn in the face of Covid. In the end, heritage tourism in Kyoto today demonstrates how the past is mobilized in constructing the identity of the city itself, how that identity shapes understandings of contemporary Japan for domestic and international travelers, and how tourist desires and experiences in Kyoto speak to broader trends in our contemporary moment in which experiencing heritage can feel like an anchor in precarious times. I will end by thinking a bit about the unexpected ways this research about branding history and culture in the experience economy in Kyoto guides my thinking at Valpo today.

Active Learning in Engineering: From Service Learning to Project Based Learning

Peter E. Johnson, Ph.D.

(Department of Mechanical Engineering & Bioengineering)

Before accepting my appointment at Valparaiso University, I had never been taught how to teach engineering. In my interview, I mimicked the excellent professors and educators that I had been exposed to – my parents, my elementary/junior high/senior high school teachers, and my college and graduate school professors. When I attended a teaching workshop the summer after my first year at Valpo, I found my true passion – studying how to best teach engineering. In this lecture, I will focus on the trials, failures, and successes of innovative teaching strategies that I have attempted and in some cases studied. These include leading senior design teams to Nicaragua, helping the SAE team build a car that reached 713 mpg, guiding students to develop new laboratory equipment, and determining how to best teach sustainability principles. I will also describe a current project with Rob Swanson and Andy Richter and two engineering students on how we will modify a $150 guitar so that it sounds as good as a $5000 guitar.