Brian D. Birch is professor of philosophy and director of the Center for the Study of Ethics. He received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Philosophy from the University of Utah (1990, 1992) and completed a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Religion and Theology from Claremont Graduate University in 1998. His areas of focus include the intersection of ethics, religion, and public life. He is the founding editor of Teaching Ethics: The Journal of the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum and among his current book projects is a volume entitled Radical Pluralism.
Phone: 801.863.6363
Email: [email protected]
Courtney Burns graduated from Utah Valley University with a B.A. in Integrated Studies and from Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland with an M.A. in Comparative Ethnic Conflict. She has interests in the areas of Conflict Transformation and Intercultural Ethics.
Phone: 801.863.5455
Email: [email protected]
Elaine Englehardt is a Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Philosophy. She has taught ethics, philosophy, and communication since 1976. She has written and directed seven national grants in Ethics and Ethics Across the Curriculum. She is considered the founder of the Ethics Across the Curriculum movement. She has authored eight books, numerous articles, and co-edits the journal Teaching Ethics. She has served as Vice President, Dean, and Director at UVU. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Utah.
Phone: 801.863.6464
Email: [email protected]
Alaina Sapp is a Student Fellow and Research assistant at the Ethics Center. They are pursuing a B.S. in philosophy at Utah Valley University. Alaina has been involved with philosophy and ethics at the university through previous employment as an Instructional Assistant and current membership on the intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team.
Email: [email protected]
Ethan Montano is the Communications Specialist at the Ethics Center. He is pursuing a B.S. in philosophy at Utah Valley University.
Email: [email protected]
Maria Blevins Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of communication at Utah Valley University. Her research focuses on conflict and organizational and environmental communication. She teaches many classes in a field work setting including Environmental Communication, where she takes students to the Capitol Reef Field Station and Advanced Small Group Communication in which she takes students on w multiday river trip. She received her BS in Outdoor Recreation Management from the University of Maine and Machias, MA in Communication and a certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution for Natural Resources from the University of Montana and her Ph.D. from the University of Utah.
Dr. Stevie Munz is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Utah Valley University. Her research program focuses on exploring the cultural experiences of identity, power, politics, and gender. In particular, she is concerned with how human beings understand and communicate these relational, political, and social experiences. She pursues her scholarly interests along two different, but related, lines of research that examine identity in the contexts of classrooms and small-town communities. To accomplish her research endeavors, she draws on intercultural, identity, and instructional communication literature as well as, utilizes narrative, ethnographic, and oral history interviewing practices.
Jeffrey Scott Nielsen is senior lecturer in philosophy and faculty liaison for the Center for the Study of Ethics. He did his doctoral work in philosophy at Boston College and his undergraduate studies in German and economics at Weber State University. He coaches the Utah Valley University Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl Team and has taken them to nationals multiple times. He is also the organizer and director of the Utah High School Ethics Bowl. His teaching focus is ethics, applied ethics, and critical thinking. He has written extensively in the area of the ethics of leadership. He is the author of the book, The Myth of Leadership: Creating Leaderless Organizations, which offers a new paradigm in peer-based management and council-based leadership.
Email: [email protected]
Anne Arendt is an Assistant Professor in Technology Management. Prior to that, she worked as the Web Resource Director in University Marketing and Communications. Before that position, she worked in Distance Education as a Resource Manager. In total, Anne has been at UVU for over 11 years. Before coming to Utah, she worked for Walden University in Minneapolis as the Director of Web and Application Development, and at Smyth Companies in Saint Paul as a Web Team Manager.
Michael Ballard is Program Director of the ASL & Deaf Studies Program and Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages & Cultures. He earned his Ph.D. in Education from Drake University. His research interest includes intercultural communication, healthy identity formation, Deaf role models and cultural capital, and navigating Deaf-hearing cultural conflicts. In addition to classroom settings, Dr. Ballard provides cultural workshops and consultations. When not working in the academy, Dr. Ballard enjoys spending time with his family, fishing, outdoor cooking, and bonfires.
Monica Campbell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Dance, as well as the Modern Dance Program Coordinator. She received her M.F.A. in Dance from the University of Utah. She is the Artistic Director of UVU's Contemporary Dance Ensemble (CDE). In 2017 she was awarded an Ethics Center Faculty Fellowship to accompany UVU's Peace and Justice Studies Program to Northern Ireland. The resulting research culminated in the new piece of choreography for CDE, Turas, that premiered in March 2018.
David R. Connelly is the Associate Vice President for Academic Programs at Utah Valley University. He is a former faculty senate president and chair of the History and Political Science Department. His primary teaching interests are in public administration with specific interests in public management, leadership, performance measurement, and survey research. He has worked developing and implementing information technology policy while at the Center for Technology in Government at the University at Albany.
Michael Goode is an Associate Professor of History. As a historian of early America and the British Atlantic with a particular focus on religion and political culture, he researches and writes about how early modern peoples thought about and negotiated violence, colonialism, and warfare – and what this tells us about our present-day engagement with these vexing problems. His book project examines the role of peace as a language and practice of government in colonial Pennsylvania.
Sarah Hall is an Assistant Professor in the Public and Community Health Department. She earned her Ph.D. in Global Health from Arizona State University. She also holds a Master of Public Administration and a B.A. in English from Brigham Young University. Prior to obtaining her Ph.D., she managed programs and marketing for several nonprofit organizations. Sarah has worked extensively on health and environment-related projects in countries including South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, New Zealand, Mexico, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Hilary Hungerford is an associate professor of geography at Utah Valley University. She earned her PhD in Geography from the University of Kansas. Her research focuses on human-environment interactions and sustainability issues in West African cities and along Utah’s Wasatch Front. She currently serves as UVU Faculty Senate President and as faculty advisor to the Interfaith Student Council.
Jill O. Jasperson has been teaching at UVU since 1997. Her expertise includes business law, business ethics, legal research, white collar crime, identity theft, consumer law, mediation, negotiation and conflict resolution. She is the author of various articles, and has presented locally, nationally, and internationally on legal topics. She received her J.D. from J. Reuben Clark Law School.
Benjamin A. Johnson is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Student Leadership & Success Studies. His teaching and research interests include history and philosophy of education, comparative and international education, metacognition, and faculty-student mentoring. Among his research interests include ethics in leadership and ethics in fundraising and endowment building at public universities. He currently serves as Senior Editor for The Journal of Student Leadership at UVU.
Rick McDonald is a professor in the Department of English and Literature at Utah Valley College. His areas of Scholarly interest include Medieval Mysticism, Medieval Literature, and ethical considerations within Horror movies. Rick is a past Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Ethics and has been at UVU for 16 years.
Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at UVU. She is co-editor of several scholarly essay collections about English Renaissance drama, and she also serves as Resident Scholar for the Grassroots Shakespeare Company, an original practices performance troupe begun by two UVU students. In recent years, Kate has been honored with the UVU Trustees Award, the College of Humanities & Social Sciences Faculty Excellence Award and the Alumni Outstanding Educator Award.
Nichole Ortega is in her fourteenth year at Utah Valley University where she is an Associate Professor and served for six years as Chair of the Department of Dance. She teaches Ballet, Dance Education, and other core courses. Nichole has served as President of the Utah Dance Education Organization and the Utah Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters. She has shared her research at several national and international conferences.
Jeff Peterson is an Associate Professor of Business Management in the Woodbury School of Business, where he teaches Organizational Behavior and Business Ethics. Prior to coming to UVU Professor Peterson had an extensive career in industry and has worked or consulted for companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Weyerhaeuser, and Premera Blue Cross. He is a strong proponent of the value of concerted self-reflection as a tool to help people live informed lives that embody ethical and moral behavior.
Axel Ramirez is an associate professor of education. He was a public school teacher for twelve years prior to coming to UVU. His area of focus is K-12 social studies education. His current projects include recruiting Latina/o students into the field of education and developing curriculum for Pacific Islander secondary students.
Michael T. Stevens is an Associate Professor of Biology and the Director of Capitol Reef Field Station. He teaches and conducts research in two areas: plant ecology and science education. As a plant ecologist, he studies how trees and shrubs interact with their environment and are influenced by factors such as herbivory, competition, latitude, soil nutrients, and boulders. As a science educator, he studies the roles that Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES) play in higher education.
Dr. Bryan R. Waite is a Professor of multicultural education and language acquisition theories and methods and the Department Chair of Secondary Education in the School of Education. At UVU he also works as the Director for Global/Intercultural Academic Programming. Originally from Texas and New Mexico, Dr. Waite has a Ph.D. in Education with an emphasis Equity and Cultural Diversity also from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Waite has a wealth of knowledge and experience on culture diversity and inclusive practices. He now works with faculty who are implementing global awareness and diversity into their university classes in addition to his responsibilities in the School of Education.
Jonathan Westover is an Associate Professor of Organizational Leadership in the Woodbury School of Business and Director of Academic Service Learning at UVU. He is also the program co-director of the Human Resource Management program and the president of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. He was recently a Fulbright Scholar (Minsk, Belarus), a POSCO Fellow at the East-West Center, and visiting scholar at the Wilson Center.
Robert J. Burton is the Tocqueville Assistant Professor of Civic Thought and Leadership and director of the Civic Thought and Leadership Initiative within UVU’s Center for Constitutional Studies. Within the fields of political philosophy, American political thought, and constitutional law, his research and teaching focus on civic education, religious liberty, and the relationship between conscience and politics.As director of CTLI, he leads a team dedicated to developing the next generation of citizens and civic leaders through innovative K-12 professional development, academic programming, and civics research.
