Professorial Lectures
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.
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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…
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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…
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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. …
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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…
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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…
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Robotic Swarms: Are Robots Taking over the World?
Sami Khorbotly, Ph.D. (Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering)
Inspired by ant colonies, bird flocks, and fish schools, robotic swarms are collections of simple inexpensive robots that, when working collectively, can complete complex assignments. I will share the work…
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What Really Counts: The Joy of Enumeration
Lara Pudwell, Ph.D. (Department of Mathematics & Statistics)
At a first glance, counting seems like a skill relegated to elementary school, and yet it forms an entire active area of research-level mathematics. Rather than counting by listing “one,…
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TBD? How My Research Agenda Evolves Based on Politics at Home and Abroad
Gregg Johnson, Ph.D. (Department of Political Science)
What is it that connects neoliberal economic policies, congressional committee structures, presidential approval, legislative elections, state ballot propositions, Latin American views of China, and the effect of race and ethnicity…
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