Faculty Scholars | Today at Elon | �þ��

In memory of Dr. John G. Sullivan, �þ��’s first Distinguished University Professor

Eric Townsend — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 15:02:46 +0000

John G. Sullivan, �þ��’s beloved Maude Sharpe Powell Professor of Philosophy emeritus and the institution’s first Distinguished University Professor, died February 13. His passing marks the end of a remarkable life dedicated to �þ��, scholarship, spiritual exploration and the transformative power of education.

For 36 years, from 1970 until his retirement in 2006, Sullivan was a cornerstone of Elon’s academic community, an intellectual and spiritual guide to countless students and an embodiment of the university’s highest ideals.

“Dr. Sullivan lovingly shaped �þ�� and its academic programs through a career that was thoroughly infused with intellectual and spiritual light,” said �þ�� President Connie Ledoux Book. “He will forever be remembered as one of the greatest faculty members in Elon’s history and his influence endures, like ripples in a pond, through the lives of all he touched.”

President Emeritus Leo M. Lambert said Sullivan, “had a powerful voice that lifted up the most cherished values of the institution. Whether the forum was a meeting of the faculty or the Board of Trustees, John’s wisdom guided us. I always valued his quiet counsel to me.”

A Life of Service and Scholarship

John Sullivan grew up in Newport, Rhode Island, and his intellectual and spiritual journey began in the Catholic priesthood. Ordained in 1963, he studied in Rome during the transformative period of the Second Vatican Council, earning a doctorate in ecclesiastical law from the Pontifical Lateran University. This immersion in one of the great moments of religious reform would shape his lifelong interest in the intersection of wisdom traditions, ethics and lived experience.

After leaving the priesthood, Sullivan earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, bringing to his academic work the same depth of commitment and spiritual inquiry that had characterized his earlier vocation. When he joined Elon’s faculty in 1970, he brought with him a rare combination of scholarly rigor, pastoral care and philosophical depth that defined his career.

An Extraordinary Educator

Sullivan’s reputation as one of Elon’s most respected teachers was established early and endured throughout his career. In 1979 he received the Daniels-Danieley Award for Excellence in Teaching, the university’s highest honor for �þ�� achievement—a testament to his extraordinary gifts in the classroom. His students found in him not just an instructor, but a guide who could illuminate the great questions of human existence with clarity, compassion and wisdom.

For 18 years, Sullivan chaired the Department of Philosophy, shaping not only individual students but the intellectual culture of the university itself. He was instrumental in developing Elon’s interdisciplinary Honors Program, was a member of the general studies committee that helped revise Elon’s curriculum in 1994, and served as the first coordinator of the Asian-Pacific Studies Program. His influence extended to the university’s governance as well, serving on the 1998 presidential search committee and on Southern Association of Schools and Colleges reaccreditation self-study steering committees across two decades.

Sullivan led Elon’s participation in the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, demonstrating his ongoing commitment to exploring and advancing the art of �þ�� itself. His selection by the Board of Trustees in 2002 as Elon’s first Distinguished University Professor—an honor bestowed on full professors who have made distinguished contributions to �þ��, scholarship and the university community—represented the culmination of a career dedicated to academic excellence.

A Voice in Times of Crisis

Perhaps no moment better captured Sullivan’s role in the Elon community than the day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. When Elon students, faculty and staff gathered in Alumni Gym to process their grief and fear, Sullivan was chosen to speak alongside President Lambert and President Emeritus Earl Danieley.

Professor John G. Sullivan (second from left) at a campus gathering in Alumni Gym the day after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

With characteristic insight, Sullivan noted the irony that he had learned of the disaster just as he was about to lead his class in studying Dante’s “Divine Comedy.”

“I said to my students: Today, we are in the dark wood,” he told the gathering. “Today, we are at the gateway to Hell. There it is on the screen. The Manhattan skyline, its twin towers collapsed; clouds of smoke muffling screams of horror.”

But Sullivan did not leave his community in despair. Drawing on Dante’s journey from darkness to light, he reminded those assembled of humanity’s capacity for both evil and good, and offered words that would resonate for years to come: “The simple truth is this: Hate is never overcome by hate. Strange as it seems to so-called realists of any age, hate is only overcome by love.” He concluded with Dante’s own words, invoking “the love that moves the sun and other stars.”

It was quintessential Sullivan—learned, profound, pastoral and ultimately hopeful, offering both philosophical depth and practical wisdom in equal measure.

John G. Sullivan, Maude Sharpe Powell Professor of Philosophy Emeritus and Elon’s first Distinguished University Professor, delivered the Commencement address to the Class of 2002.

A Commencement 20 Years in the Making

In May 2002, Sullivan finally delivered the Commencement address he had been preparing for over two decades. Since 1980, he had served as Elon’s backup Commencement speaker, revising and refining his speech each year in case he was needed. He would sit quietly in the faculty section in his academic regalia, his speech folded inside a book, waiting for a moment that never came—until 2002.

When the scheduled speaker, astronaut Mae Jemison, withdrew due to a family illness, Sullivan’s moment arrived. His unusual role as America’s most patient backup speaker caught national attention. The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page story, chronicling Sullivan’s 22-year wait and Elon’s meticulous contingency planning for commencement. The story noted that the 65-year-old religious scholar was “the unofficial dean of the nation’s standby commencement speakers.”

Sullivan maintained an air of mystery about his speeches over the years, refusing to share them even with his wife, Gregg. “It’s the one thing in our marriage we haven’t shared,” he told the Journal. “I always think, maybe the speaker’s plane will be late, or he’ll keel over on the platform, and I’ll come rushing up to save the day, like in the old movies.”

John G. Sullivan talks with CNN about his May 2002 Commencement address, which was two decades in the making.

The story also received coverage on CNN and NBC network news, bringing national recognition to both Sullivan and Elon’s thorough preparation for all contingencies.

When Sullivan finally stood at the podium on May 25, 2002, at Elon’s 112th Commencement exercises, he was characteristically humble about the moment. “I’m honored,” he said. “But this is not about me. It’s about graduation—these students who have completed their career here and are going on to new things. We are just their cheerleaders.”

Beyond Elon: Teaching and Healing

Sullivan’s influence extended far beyond Elon’s campus. In 1987, he co-founded the School of Philosophy and Healing in Action (SOPHIA), a program at the Traditional Acupuncture Institute in Columbia, Maryland (later Tai Sophia Institute in Laurel, Maryland). The program taught healing principles based on ancient Chinese philosophy and wisdom traditions, reflecting Sullivan’s belief that philosophy was not merely an academic exercise but a path to living more fully and helping others do the same.

Following his retirement from Elon in 2006, Sullivan became principal designer and a faculty member in an innovative master’s program in transformative leadership at Tai Sophia Institute. This program for adult learners applied the lessons of nature and the great wisdom traditions to everyday life, embodying Sullivan’s conviction that education should transform as well as inform.

The Elder as Teacher: A New Chapter

Retirement did not mean withdrawal from �þ�� for Sullivan. Instead, it marked a new chapter in which he explored and embodied what he called “the gifts of later life.” In 2007, he participated in a continuing education program for residents of Blakey Hall, a retirement community near Elon’s campus, �þ�� courses alongside other retired faculty members. He found in this work a different kind of fulfillment.

“When you are in your work life, you have a lot of interactions with colleagues on a day-by-day basis,” Sullivan reflected in 2012. “When you retire, that’s hard to replace.” But �þ�� adult learners, he discovered, offered its own rewards: “You invariably receive more than you give. There is a different sense of what learning can be; you’re freer—you’re now learning for your own deepening, not for a diploma.”

In 2011, Sullivan became chair of the executive board for LIFE@Elon, a university-sponsored program offering learning opportunities to people ages 50 and older. As he explained, the program’s purpose was “to help Elon community members, alumni and friends remain vital in mind and heart.”

“I like being with adult learners,” Sullivan said. “I think they bring so much. Being in touch with people who are older but still vital gives me hope.”

A Philosophy of Aging

Sullivan’s retirement years were marked by deep reflection on the meaning and purpose of life’s later stages. In 2009, he published “The Spiral of the Seasons: Welcoming the Gifts of Later Life,” a poetic meditation that challenged conventional views of retirement and aging. Drawing on the four stages of life from ancient Indian philosophy, Sullivan likened a human lifetime to the four seasons: in spring we are students, in summer we are householders, in autumn we are forest dwellers, and in winter we are invited to become sages.

“Our culture is very much at home in the first half of life,” Sullivan observed. “We are at home in doing, in striving, in achieving. The quest is toward fame and fortune.” But the transition to life’s second half, he maintained, involves simplifying and returning to a fuller relationship with the natural world—what he called “release from striving” and “release from identifying with power and prestige and possessions.”

Sullivan identified three essential tasks of an elder: keeping the little things little and the big things big, encouraging creativity, and blessing the young. Writing from what he called “the perspective of one wanting to enter the arc of descent in conscious, peaceful and joyful ways,” he offered both a philosophy and a practice for aging with grace and purpose.

“I am exploring the opportunities of this phase myself,” he wrote. “I am delighted to have the companionship of fellow explorers.”

John G. Sullivan in December 2009.

A Lasting Legacy

John Sullivan was awarded the Elon Medallion, Elon’s highest honor, in 2008. In 2013 the Board of Trustees named a residence hall in The Oaks neighborhood in his honor. But perhaps his greatest honor can be found in the lives of thousands of students whose lives he touched and transformed. They learned from him not just philosophy, but how to live philosophically—how to ask deep questions, to seek wisdom in multiple traditions, to meet darkness with light and to overcome hate with love.

Sullivan and his late wife, Gregg Winn Sullivan, established the Sullivan-Winn Endowed Scholarship to assist students studying philosophy or the humanities. He was a loyal donor to Elon, with 52 years of giving, including gifts to the endowed scholarship and the Elon Academy.

In a career spanning four decades at Elon and continuing long beyond his retirement from the university, Sullivan exemplified the role of teacher-scholar: learned but humble, rigorous but compassionate, intellectually demanding but pastorally caring. He taught that education was not merely about acquiring knowledge but about becoming more fully human, and that the examined life was indeed worth living.

A memorial service for Sullivan will be held on Saturday, April 18 at 1:30 p.m. at the Community Church of Elon.

Meet Elon Law’s Inclusive Excellence Fellows for 2025-26

Michael Abernethy — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 15:34:09 +0000

Five student leaders committed to advancing access and belonging in legal education and the legal field have been selected as Inclusive Excellence Fellows for 2025–26.

Jsaela Barrow L’26, Jennifer Carbajal L’26, Tarrah Casey L’26, Adriana Hernandez Ordonez L’25, and Elyanna Smith L’26 will meet biweekly with Laké Laosebikan Buggs, �þ��’s director of inclusive excellence for graduate and professional education, while participating in Student Bar Association meetings and acting as liaisons for their classmates. Student fellows elevate student perspectives, support inclusive programming and dialogue, and contribute to ongoing efforts to strengthen belonging, equity, and engagement across the law school community.

“Our Inclusive Excellence Fellows play a vital role in helping Elon Law live our values every day,” Laosebikan-Buggs said. “Through their leadership, scholarship, and service, they strengthen our community and help ensure that students feel seen, supported, and empowered to succeed.”

These student fellows join Associate Professor of Law Chrystal Clodomir, who is continuing for a second year as the dean’s faculty fellow for inclusive excellence, in advancing inclusive �þ�� practices, in advancing inclusive �þ�� practices and supporting neurodivergent students.

During the 2024–25 academic year, Clodomir led a comprehensive study examining neurodivergent law students’ academic experiences through listening sessions, student surveys, and extensive legal research. The project engaged students, faculty, and student organizations in conversations about classroom practices, accessibility, and belonging, and led to the development of faculty resources.

In 2026, Clodomir will build on this foundation by developing accessible resources for students and educators, expanding her scholarship, and strengthening institutional practices that promote inclusive �þ�� and learning.

Carbajal will assist Clodomir in the research process this year.

“Professor Clodomir’s selection for a second year as Faculty Inclusive Excellence Fellow reflects both the impact of her work and the promise of what she continues to build at Elon Law,” said Laosebikan-Buggs. “Through her leadership in advancing inclusive excellence, neurodiversity, and student support, she has strengthened our academic community. Her work transforms moments that can feel vulnerable for students into pathways for empowerment, academic success, and professional confidence, and continues to move our community toward a truly inclusive culture.”

The 2025-2026 Elon Law Inclusive Excellence Fellows

Jsaela Barrow L’26

Hometown: Morehead City, North Carolina
Alma Mater and Major: Master of Public Health, Eastern Virginia Medical School; B.S. in Biology, Campbell University
Intended Practice Area: Health Law and Policy
Involvement and Leadership Roles: Elon Law Advocacy Fellow, Black Law �þ�� Association, and Society for Health Law & Bioethics

“As a Black woman entering a profession in which we represent only 4% of attorneys nationwide, I am deeply grateful to attend a law school that values not only my academic ability, but also my perspective. Being in this space, I know the importance of advocating not just for myself, but for others as well. As an Elon Law inclusive excellence fellow, I am committed to strengthening every law student’s sense of belonging, while actively advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion within our law school community. Through leadership and advocacy, I strive to lead with purpose and help cultivate an environment where every student feels seen, heard, and genuinely supported.”

Jennifer Carbajal L’26

Hometown: Salisbury, North Carolina
Alma Mater and Major: B.A. in Political Science, Catawba College
Intended Practice Area: Immigration and Civil Rights Law
Involvement and Leadership Roles: Vice President of Hispanic and Latinx Law �þ�� Association; 2L representative in Honor Council; Professionalism and Social Chair of Immigration Law Society; Co-Chair of Community and Development for Student Mentors; Member of First Gen. Society

“I came into law school knowing that I wanted to advocate for others, and knew immediately that I wanted to be a part of the inclusive excellence fellows. I want to use my voice and my position to advocate for individuals who have concerns that may sometimes be overlooked. I hope that throughout my time in my position, I can leave behind a safe place for students to feel comfortable to advocate for themselves and have difficult conversations that need to be addressed in such tumultuous times.”

Tarrah Casey L’26

Hometown: Greenville, South Carolina
Alma Mater and Major: B.A. Philosophy, Coastal Carolina University
Intended Practice Area: Disability Law, Criminal Law, Special Education Law
Involvement: Honor Council Election Council Committee Co-Chair; student mentor; Elon Reaches Out committee member; Parents Attending Law School; Andrew G. Bennett Student Wellness Innovation Grant Recipient; Phi Alpha Delta;
Criminal Law Teaching Assistant

“My goal is to become the kind of lawyer who doesn’t just navigate the law, but helps transform it — creating pathways, expanding access, and making sure every person has the chance to be seen, heard, and valued. Law gives me the tools to transform lived experiences into policy solutions, to challenge structures that perpetuate inequity, and to ensure that dignity and opportunity are not privileges but rights. I’m pursuing this profession because I believe lawyers have a responsibility to stand in the gap: to speak when others cannot, to navigate complexity on behalf of those who shouldn’t have to, and to push institutions toward justice, compassion, and accountability.”

Adriana Hernandez Ordonez L’25

Hometown: Snow Hill, North Carolina
Alma Mater and Major: B.A. in Criminology & B.A. in Sociology, Eastern Connecticut State University
Intended Practice Area: Business Law & Real Estate
Involvement and Leadership Roles: President of Hispanic & Latinx Law Student Association; Academic Fellow; Elon Law Mentor; Moot Court Board

“As a first-generation Hispanic student, pursuing a legal education is both deeply personal and purpose-driven. Entering law school meant learning to navigate an unfamiliar environment while carrying the expectations and sacrifices of my family with me. At Elon Law, I found a community that affirmed my identity and encouraged me to lead with authenticity. As an inclusive excellence fellow, I hope to support students who may feel uncertain or marginalized by reminding them that their experiences are valuable and their voices matter. I am committed to advocating for equity within the legal profession and uplifting those whose perspectives are too often overlooked or misunderstood.”

Elyanna Smith L’26

Hometown: Charlotte, North Carolina
Alma Mater and Major: B.A. in Political Science, University of North Carolina, at Charlotte
Intended Practice Area: Civil and Criminal Litigation
Involvement and Leadership Roles: Professionalism Chair of the Hispanic/Latinx Law Student Association; member of the Criminal Law Society; Participant in Lawyers for Literacy program through the Pro Bono Board

“As an inclusive excellence fellow, I hope to make Elon Law a safe space for all. I have seen how access, representation, and inclusion can shape someone’s sense of belonging, and how the absence of those things can limit opportunities. I chose this role because I want to be part of the ongoing effort to ensure that the legal field evolves into one that welcomes and values everyone.”

About the Dean’s Faculty Fellow for Inclusive Excellence

Associate Professor of Law Chrystal Clodomir

Chrystal Clodomir is an associate professor of law at Elon Law’s Greensboro campus. Since 2021-22, she has taught courses in Legal Method & Communication, Education Law, Family Law and Secured Transactions. Prior to joining Elon, Clodomir graduated from Rutgers University and Cornell Law School and practiced law for over 15 years in a variety of practice areas including family law, education law and criminal prosecution.

A graduate of Rutgers University and Cornell University School of Law, Clodomir practiced criminal law in New York and education law in Delaware prior to moving to North Carolina in 2018 and originally joining the legal staff of the Children’s Law Center of Central North Carolina.

“I’m honored to continue this work as the dean’s faculty fellow for inclusive excellence,” Clodomir said. “Over the past year, listening to students and learning from their experiences has reinforced how important it is to build learning environments that recognize and support different ways of thinking and learning. This next phase of my work will focus on creating accessible resources, strengthening inclusive �þ�� practices, and helping ensure that every student has the tools and confidence to succeed in law school and in the legal profession.”

Elon’s new Leadership Faculty Scholars begin program

rghoshal — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 16:29:48 +0000

Four Elon faculty members have begun their roles as Leadership Education Faculty Scholars for 2024-25. They will participate in a series of workshops to learn more about leadership education and design an experiential leadership component to use in a course during the following year in connection with Elon’s Leadership ELR. The faculty members will also receive a stipend for their work.

The scholars are:

Jessica Gisclair, associate professor of strategic communications
Brian Pennington, director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society and professor of religious studies
Will Pluer, assistant professor of engineering
Stacey Thomas, assistant professor of nursing

At Elon, leadership education is not centrally about giving orders or attaining formal power. Rather, Elon’s approach is relational and collaborative, and focused on helping students develop into ethical, purposive and inclusive leaders and initiative-takers in organizations and society. This approach is consistent with shifts in the field as leadership education has grown beyond its early focus on formal authority to embrace topics like self-knowledge, informal leadership, effective cooperation, group dynamics and conflict resolution, which are relevant for students regardless of what formal roles they may attain.

The scholars program is led by Raj Ghoshal, faculty fellow for leadership education and associate professor of sociology. Applications to be a Leadership Education Faculty Scholar go out every spring.

Passionately Curious: Ben Evans on deciphering unanswered scientific questions

Owen Covington — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 18:55:00 +0000

Each year, �þ�� points a spotlight on its truly exceptional faculty and their dedication to excellent �þ��, scholarly accomplishment and transformative mentoring in the President’s Report. In this year’s report, “�þ�� Faculty: Passionately Curious,” featured educators were asked to write about their intellectual passion and how they share that passion with their students inside and outside the classroom.

Associate Professor Ben Evans, right, working with students in a physics lab.

If physics is all about understanding the simplest bits of everything, then one particularly fiddly bit of everything turns out to be magnetics. Magnets feel simple, which is endearing – but I’ve found they are delightfully, devastatingly obtuse, and they are a puzzle I fear I’ll never solve. And I’ve always been one for puzzles.

It’s lucky for me, then, that magnetics has turned out to be useful in so many ways. Over the past decade, I’ve been working on ways to use magnetics to treat cancers and to resolve infections, to study cells and tug on single molecules, to build robots both micro and macro, to mimic microbiology and to enhance medical diagnoses. As a scientist, I value these real-world applications of fundamental principles, and I enjoy exploring interdisciplinary synergies – physics in biology, in chemistry, in medicine. But I admit that none of this keeps me up at night, neither the connections, nor the novelties, nor the ends. I don’t care for them like I should. What drives me is simpler: For me, it’s the puzzle. Like many physicists, my motivation is the simplest version of “why?” and my passion is for unanswered questions.

This is why last summer I spent a whole month reading – really, obsessively poring over (and over) – academic articles on the physics of balls falling through a fluid near a wall. Falling balls are not a particular interest of mine, but I have a question, and that question has an answer. There’s definitely an answer, and it’s somewhere in this confluence of papers. Somewhere. I go back and forth, manuscript to manuscript, re-reading bits I could see in my sleep. I get motion sickness from all the back and forth, and I imagine a deep grinding pain somewhere mid-brain, behind and between the eyes, while I wear mental ruts of well-tracked thoughts. If A then B; if B then C, if… where is the paper on C? I find success and sleep well one night, but the next morning success shows itself to be a herring, and I start over at B. Weeks, this is. More papers, more models, more mathematics, squeezing myself into a new set of definitions (theta is phi? r is a?) and finally, finally, I understand the question.

The answer, it turns out, is in an unpublished appendix held by a dead scientist. But a publisher finds hardcopy in a file cabinet and scans it back into the 21st century. It connects my dots, and another piece of reality slips into place in my head, and it fits. Now I can publish and sleep.

Is there a point? Sure: The falling-ball-near-a-wall lets us build swimming magnetic micro-robots, which can (could) deliver drugs inside the body, transport cells and constitute a tool that (eventually) makes life better for everyone. Other things – the sub-microscopic rust which heats up, the magnetic flippers and flappers which make valves, pumps, whole systems for microscopic manipulation – lead to similar ends. Those ends motivate my work for others.

For me, it’s the niggling, dangling, loose end of not understanding something which should be understood that grabs hold of my whole self and makes it work through to the end. It’s the only thing that makes me my best. It’s not that I hope to impose order on the universe – not at all; nature is fit and finished. It’s the universe imposing order on me, so I don’t track with untruths and I fall in more deeply with everything that is not me. And in falling in, I understand more because it’s all the same show.

I teach because I want others to see the same, and to learn to answer their own questions. In physics, we seek to understand the only set of rules that applies to everything and is never broken. Who wouldn’t want to learn? Yet so many don’t because they haven’t been shown the beauty, the elegance, and haven’t been made to experience themselves as a part of the system. I lead them with bits and pieces and encourage them to engage and grasp at the whole. Most everyone leaves with a deeper understanding, or at least a deeper appreciation for the way the world works, but some catch on and need to know more. Those students will never stop asking why, and they’ll turn into physicists.

Why? Because the best thing to understand is everything, and because if you want modern miracles, then these are places to start: with unanswered questions, with little bits of rust and a couple of magnets, and with the motion of a ball falling through a fluid near a wall.

Passionately Curious: Geoffrey Claussen on encouraging critical thinking about moral strengths and weaknesses

Owen Covington — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 16:10:00 +0000

Geofrrey Claussen, associate professor of religious studies and Lori and Eric Sklut Scholar in Jewish Studies

All human beings are prone to covering up our ethical weaknesses and faults, ensuring that we look better than we are. We seek to deceive others, and we seek to deceive ourselves. But changing ourselves requires being honest about ourselves. Improving ourselves requires confronting those pieces of ourselves that are hardest to look at.

Teachings along these lines have been important to a variety of human communities. I have encountered such wisdom especially within the �þ��s of the Musar movement, a pietistic Jewish movement that flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries and emphasized the work of honestly examining one’s ethics — including one’s struggles and shortcomings.

Much of my scholarship has focused on the Musar movement, and I often draw inspiration from the spiritual exercises it recommended and the penetrating moral questions it asked. Writing as an ethicist, I encourage readers to look honestly at not only their moral strengths but also at their weaknesses, and to consider how they might live with greater compassion, kindness, justice and honesty.

But while the leaders of the Musar movement encouraged self-scrutiny, they were traditionalists who seldom encouraged scrutiny of the traditions they saw as authoritative. Critical thinking about oneself was essential; too much critical thinking about what they saw as the authoritative Jewish tradition was off limits. In this regard, I would not have fit in well within the pietistic academies of the Musar movement. I have a deep passion for not only encouraging people to think critically about their own moral lives, but also to think critically about traditions and communities that claim to have authority in the world.

As a scholar and teacher, I work not only as an ethicist but also as a historian who studies how Jewish ethics and traditions have been constructed over time. Much of my scholarship focuses broadly on how those who construct the meaning of “Judaism” often cover up the histories of what they perceive to be ethical weaknesses and faults, ensuring the tradition will be portrayed positively (as they see it).

Popular presentations of Judaism, in this sense, are no different from the presentations of most other political, cultural or religious traditions. Those who construct the meaning of Christianity, for example, often seek to cover up the histories of what they perceive to be its ethical shortcomings. So too, those who construct the meaning of America often ensure the history of the United States is presented in positive terms.

Honestly presenting the history of ideas of a persecuted minority tradition is especially fraught, however. Given the history of antisemitic misrepresentations of Judaism, many scholars of Jewish traditions have had good reasons to seek to present Judaism in wholly positive terms. But it is clear to me that bringing positive changes to any sort of community requires honesty about that community and its traditions. Improving the United States requires honestly confronting those aspects of our nation that are hardest to face. The ethical improvement of any of the traditions commonly classified as “religions” requires honestly considering the darkest aspects of their histories and contemporary realities.

When I teach about darker aspects of any tradition, I seek to do so gently, supporting students through the learning process and helping them see how honesty in scholarship can lead to a better world. And I help students to pay attention to social and historical contexts, proceed with humility and consider how all human traditions have ethical flaws. Bigots often demonize particular traditions — like Judaism, for example — while failing to confront the darkness of their own traditions. �þ�� who study with intellectual honesty, by contrast, realize that all human traditions are inescapably human, reflecting both the good and the bad in human nature.

Engaging in intellectually honest study will not automatically shape us into better people or create a better world, but critically studying traditions with honesty can help us deepen our own senses of compassion, kindness and justice. We can come to see the forces that shape human societies more clearly and be more thoughtful about how to help others. We can focus our attention on serious problems that partisans might prefer to brush aside. We can even learn to detect elements of these problems within ourselves.

I do think the Musar movement got it right in encouraging deep self-scrutiny and honesty about one’s own ethical strengths and weaknesses. I am passionate about encouraging such work but, unlike the traditionalists whom I study, I am passionate about helping to ensure that ethics is informed by a critical and honest look at traditions that shape us. Critical thinking about oneself is essential, and so is critical thinking about all who claim authority in our world.

Passionately Curious: Jeff Carpenter on how teachers connect and collaborate through technology

Owen Covington — Wed, 20 Feb 2019 16:25:00 +0000

Associate Professor of Education Jeff Carpenter talking with students in the classroom.

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I quickly learned two things at the beginning of my �þ�� career: �þ�� was really hard, and I was very isolated. While isolation has long plagued teachers in the United States, I was experiencing an extreme version of it: I was �þ�� in rural Japan and knew woefully little about the language, culture and education system. I was able to learn some on my own through trial and error, and by conjuring the spirits of the teacher role models from my own schooling. But I soon had a sense that I was unlikely to ever become a particularly great teacher if I continued to toil away on my own.

Fortunately, as I gradually learned to navigate the Japanese language, culture and schools, I gained access to Lesson Study, a rich, teacher-driven, collaborative professional development process. In Lesson Study, teams of teachers design, teach and analyze lessons that are meant to explore thorny aspects of �þ��. My exposure to Lesson Study provided new ideas about how to improve as an educator, and more importantly gave me a sense of the potential of professional development (PD).

Unfortunately, in the ensuing years I spent as a high school teacher in several U.S. states, I experienced just as much bad PD as good PD. Some PD dealt with content I perceived as relevant, treated me as a professional and allowed me to collaborate with colleagues. But on too many occasions PD was one-size-fits-all, seemed irrelevant to the particular context of my classroom and students, and didn’t actually leave me feeling like I was being treated as a professional. The fact that so many of my fellow teachers and I were quite hungry to improve in our �þ�� added to our frustration when subjected to such ineffective and often condescending PD. We were ourselves in charge of organizing �þ�� and learning experiences for the benefit of others, but rarely benefitted from our own rich professional learning opportunities.

When I returned to graduate school, I was therefore interested in better understanding teacher learning and professional development. I discovered that some places in the U.S. were using the same PD model I experienced in Japan and I ended up focusing my dissertation on U.S. humanities teachers’ experiences with Lesson Study. However, when I came to Elon, there were no existing Lesson Study groups in the area for me to easily continue that line of research. I began looking around for new opportunities to study other collaborative, teacher-driven PD approaches.

Serendipitously, a 2012 conversation with a K-12 colleague piqued my interest in how teachers were using Twitter for professional purposes. Although in its early years Twitter was often characterized by banal status updates, some educators realized its potential for other uses. The open nature and short format of Twitter offers teachers opportunities to connect and collaborate beyond their districts, states and even nations. Instead of being limited to learning with only a few peers in their school, teachers could tap into a larger professional community via Twitter, and do so whenever and from wherever.

Twitter also connected me with Dan Krutka, a fellow education researcher. Our first project produced an article, “How and Why Educators Use Twitter: A Survey of the Field,” that is one of the most widely read and cited articles in the history of the Journal of Research on Technology in Education. The more than 750 educators who responded indicated they valued Twitter’s personalized, immediate nature, and the positive and collaborative community it facilitated. Many reported that Twitter served as an antidote to professional isolation and described their Twitter activities as superior to traditional PD offerings.

This initial Twitter research led to a further six journal articles on educators’ Twitter experiences. I have also expanded into examining other new forms of teacher professional activity such as the use of Pinterest, Reddit and Voxer, a private messaging app. The common thread among most of these studies has been voluntary collaboration driven by teachers – not mandated by principals or districts – and how technology empowers educators to accomplish this.

My research has benefited my �þ�� at Elon, perhaps most significantly in the Teaching in the 21st Century Classroom course. Social media keeps me up-to-date on the K-12 buzz, and my students use Twitter to begin building their professional networks. Assistant Professor of Education Scott Morrison and I have also developed the #ElonEd Twitter hashtag, which is now widely used by students, faculty, staff and alumni across our teacher education program. When our graduates face the inevitable challenges of �þ��, they don’t do so in isolation. They have online colleagues and communities they can go to for help.

Passionately Curious: Janna Anderson on how technological changes impact society

Owen Covington — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 20:10:00 +0000

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I have always been intrigued by innovation and systems thinking. When I first got online in 1994, the potential of an emerging system – the internet – came into view and, with it, a new, wondrous, promising and scary future. When I became a teacher-scholar-mentor at Elon in the late 1990s, I had no doubt that my energy and that of our students should be focused on this system that changes everything.

We live in a global, immersive, invisible, ambient computing environment driven by an increasingly massive and complex system, a world-spanning information fabric of artificial-intelligence-based, glitchy and hackable software and hardware, connected databases, sensors, cameras and more. We blindly depend upon it. This has increasingly impactful and potentially dangerous implications. At this amazing time of accelerating change, a better tomorrow can be inspired by foresight today. How will free expression, property, privacy, presence, identity, security, trust, economic development, human development, human relationships and human rights evolve?

�ճ�� at �þ�� documents people’s hopes and fears about the likely positive and negative impacts of disruptive change. Its mission is to explore and provide insights into emerging issues to inform the public and serve the greater good. We have documented experts’ expectations, hopes and fears on our website in thousands of videos, hundreds of written research reports and near-real-time news stories produced at international internet events. Important innovators such as John Perry Barlow, Vint Cerf, Leonard Kleinrock, Esther Dyson and Tim Berners-Lee have shared their inspiring dreams of a better future but also warned about the tough issues we face as the digital age shakes up and overtakes our societal norms and economic and political systems.

Imagining the Internet didn’t become a formally funded center at �þ�� until 2007, but since its start in 2000 its work has involved nearly 400 students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the university. They research issues, travel the world to report on important communications policy events, and in the process, they become informed, inspired advocates for a positive future.

Imagining the Internet began thanks to two grants initiated by �þ�� parent Lee Rainie, who had just become the founding director for a new center at Pew Research examining the impact of the internet. First, in 2000 I innovated “One Neighborhood One Week on the Internet,” a project in which 25 students examined 25 families’ uses of the internet in one small neighborhood in the town of Elon. Second, in 2001-02 Connie Book (now the university’s president) worked with 12 students on a retrospective research project in which they analyzed a sampling of predictions about the future of the internet made from 1993 to 1995 and published it as

In 2003 Pew agreed to fund a wider-ranging study of predictions made from 1990 to 1995 about the likely impact of the internet. I involved nearly 70 students in this work and posted it online as a Predictions Database with more than 4,200 predictions made in the early 1990s. The database project was so well received that Wired author and futurist Bruce Sterling suggested Elon and Pew begin doing ongoing surveys to collect and analyze current expert opinions about issues tied to technological evolution. Since then, dozens of public-interest reports based on our expert surveys have been issued by Elon and Pew and read by millions.

In 2017 and 2018 alone, we have issued reports illuminating ideas and concerns tied to digital life and well-being; misinformation; pluses and minuses of the Algorithm Age; trolls, fake news and online discourse; the future of job training; Internet of Things security; and the public’s trust in online interactions. Many of the center’s findings are included in the digital archives of the Library of Congress, and its documentary journalism is part of the official archives of the United Nations’ Secretariat for the Global Internet Governance Forum.

Imagining the Internet is a mirror we hold up to humans’ changing lives in an ever-evolving world of interactive information. It exposes vital issues to better inform our planning for the future and it provides historical documentation of a revolutionary time. It assists all of us in understanding the impact of the technology we are allowing to gradually insinuate itself into our lives to a point at which we cannot thrive without it.

We have to examine how we are changing as our tools change. We must work diligently to identify challenges and opportunities in order to make informed choices today to create the future we want.

If we don’t, we may fall victim to a tomorrow we never saw coming.

Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler offers insight into how children learn in Distinguished Scholar Lecture

Owen Covington — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 18:35:00 +0000

The young boy in the video was intimidated by the gap between the river rocks, wanting to join his friends on the far one, but not wanting to get wet in the process.

With some gentle guidance to the boys from a teacher that offered one way to look at the challenge, a friend reached out across the gap, helping the boy traverse the flowing water and join his friends without a drop of water on his shoes.

Professor of Psychology Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler delivers the 2019 Distinguished Scholar Lecture on Tuesday, Feb. 12.

The video was just one piece of data from the extensive research history of Professor of Psychology Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler, who had watched and rewatched the video to see how children confront challenges and learn from them with the guidance of parents and teachers. Vandermaas-Peeler shared it with the audience in the LaRose Digital Theatre on Tuesday, Feb. 12, as she delivered the 2019 Distinguished Scholar Lecture highlighting the work she's accomplished in better understanding how children learn.

This type of research — poring over taped interactions among children and between children and their parents and teachers — is vital to understanding how children learn and techniques that might be able to help them develop a sense of inquiry and curiosity, Vandermaas-Peeler told the audience.

"It is very time-consuming, and you have to be a little bit crazy to do it," said Vandermaas-Peeler, who is the director of the Center for Research on Global Engagement. "And I love it."

The lecture showcased the great strides Vandermaas-Peeler has made through research and scholarship in the area of early childhood development throughout her career. Since coming to Elon in 1995, she has published 35 peer-reviewed scholarly articles and has made more than 75 presentations at international and national conferences. Her edited book, "Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research," was published last year and showcases her work in that area as well. She received Elon's Distinguished Scholar Award in 2018, which led to Tuesday night's presentation.

As Cindy Fair, Watts-Thompson Professor and chair of the Department of Public Health Studies, noted in her introduction Tuesday, Vandermaas-Peeler has devoted her research to the context in which children learn by studying their interactions in real-world situations, particularly within natural outdoors environments.

As context for a lot of the research examples she provided during her lecture, Vandermaas-Peeler explained that one area of interest has been in the "zone of proximal development" — a concept centered around tasks that a learner can complete with the appropriate assistance. That was at work in the case of the boy crossing the river rocks, or in other examples when teachers don't complete tasks for their students, but guide them toward solving them on their own.

Vandermaas-Peeler has focused on "bridging the known and the new," which serves to help children make connections that tie new knowledge to what they already know. Vandermaas-Peeler cited the example of a parent helping a child learn about what saltwater fish eat by connecting it to the film "Finding Nemo," a film about a lost clownfish and his father that the child was very familiar with. "He gets that reference immediately, and that helps him make that connection," she said.

Through a concept called "intersubjectivity," the teacher and the child are both focused on the task at hand and have a mutual regard for the task, and for each other, Vandermaas-Peeler said.

These three concepts create the framework for Vandermaas-Peeler's research into how children learn, particularly as it relates to how young children learn numeracy and mathematics. Studies have shown that learning to work with numbers at a young age can be a good predictor for future academic success, so understanding effective techniques to help them engage with mathematics and guide them as they learn is important, she said.

She devised studies that provided a section of parents some instruction into how to include numeracy into how they worked with their children while not providing that guidance to the other parents in the study. That general guidance on how to work with their children to learn numbers, counting and other mathematical concepts yielded impressive results, Vandermaas-Peeler said.

"Math talk matters," Vandermaas-Peeler said. "It turns out when adults talk about math, children also talk about math. … Parents can be guided with very simple instructions on how to guide their children."

That research expanded when Vandermaas-Peeler became a mentor to Honors Fellow Cara McClain '14, an experience that both said had a profound impact on their approach to learning about childhood development. During the course of two years, the pair extensively studied how children were learning at Children First, a nonprofit preschool in Durham, N.C., founded by McClain's mother, Donna King. The school is built inspired by the Reggio Emilia educational philosophy and focuses on the use of the outdoors to help children learn.

"What we found really fascinating was the functional use of math in the environment," Vandermaas-Peeler said.

During her full-year sabbatical, Vandermaas-Peeler extensively recorded how children were learning at Children First, with a focus on mathematics and science taught in natural environments such as in a garden or along a river. That has extended into her research into parental guidance, with parents taught how to foster inquiry among their children — not telling them the answers to mathematical or scientific questions, but helping them seek the solution.

Vandermaas-Peeler pointed to a quote from Carla Rinaldi, a pedagogist and practitioner of the Reggio Emilia philosophy, as underscoring what she has found in her work. "Observe and listen to children because when they ask, 'why?,' they are not simply asking for the answer from you. They are requesting the courage to find a collection of possible answers. … Yet it is possible to destroy this attitude of the child with our quick answers and our certainty," Rinaldi wrote.

Video of Vandermaas-Peeler's entire lecture is avaiable .

Passionately Curious: Haya Ajjan on how technology gives women entrepreneurs a voice

Owen Covington — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 16:30:00 +0000

Associate Professor of Management Information Systems Haya Ajjan talks with students in a common area of Sankey Hall.

By Haya Ajjan, associate professor of management information systems

I was once conversing with two women from Saudi Arabia who shared a fascinating anecdote while sitting next to me on an airplane.

They told me about women they knew who crafted handmade goods at home and sold them on Instagram. Until recently, women in Saudi Arabia were banned from driving. Technology gave those women an avenue for financial independence and ownership they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

My scholarship focuses on better understanding the impact of technology use on individuals, groups and organizations. Two touch points on my academic path influenced this passion. When I was an �þ�� student, I took a class in database management and fell in love with it because my professor was so amazing. He helped me understand the value and structure of data, and how to look at it from a detailed perspective while also taking a step back and seeing the big picture. Then when I started my Ph.D. program, I worked with my dissertation adviser on understanding how organizations manage a variety of projects to maintain their innovative leadership in the market, and that became part of my intellectual passion as well.

Companies that implement analytics and data mining are able to achieve a much higher return on investment. Throughout my career, I’ve used my passion for data mining and technology to help businesses better understand their customers and run more efficiently.

Right now, for example, I’m analyzing four years’ worth of sales data from a local organization and examining how online reviews and social media conversations impact sales for the company. But my interest in data and technology also dovetailed unexpectedly with another passion – women’s empowerment.

In 2013 I was presenting my work on how technology impacts performance and organization, and I was completely drawn to a session at the same conference on women’s empowerment. I grew up in Damascus, Syria, and rooted in tradition, girls often had to leave school by a young age to get married and start a family.

That always struck me as odd. Starting a family is a noble thing, but it frustrated me that they didn’t get to reach their full potential in terms of their education. I told the presenter I would love to do research with her, particularly about how technology could improve women’s self-efficacy and sense of empowerment.

We interviewed women entrepreneurs across Egypt about how they utilize technology to sell their products, connect with people and build their financial independence. That led to another study in South Africa in which we explored how women use information communication technology – mobile technology, social media, email, etc. – to create and build their social capital. We surveyed more than 200 women about how they find and connect with customers online, how they can reach new markets using technology and the ways in which they can work with other women entrepreneurs. We actually found that building those social networks had a significant effect on women’s self-determination and perceived impact.

I’m genuinely intellectually passionate about women’s empowerment because it’s been a part of my journey since my early years when I was exposed to a patriarchal society. I’m fascinated by how women can use technology to transform their social, political and economic lives. We know that feelings of empowerment can foster flexibility, stimulate change, improve innovative behavior and reduce strain. In the society these women live in, they may not have had a voice before. Technology enables them to create their own.

I talk about my research all the time in my classes, both my data mining scholarship and my women’s empowerment work. I’ve had several students – even friends of students who have heard about my work – tell me they are interested in researching issues related to women’s empowerment. One of my �þ�� research students and I started a project focused on Syrian refugees and their use of technology, so they can again have a voice in their community. Projects like this impact students in the classroom at a different level. It’s no longer just theory, but it’s making an impact in the communities in which we live.

‘�þ�� Faculty: Passionately Curious’ celebrates faculty scholarship

Alexa Boschini — Wed, 14 Nov 2018 13:50:00 +0000

FOSTERING INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY

A message from President Connie Ledoux Book

Elon is fortunate to have truly exceptional faculty dedicated to excellent �þ��, scholarly accomplishment and transformative mentoring. These impressive educators are the heartbeat of Elon’s thriving intellectual community, preparing students to be leaders and changemakers.

> Click here to access “�þ�� Faculty: Passionately Curious”

“�þ�� Faculty: Passionately Curious” celebrates our ethos of academic excellence. I invite you to read the stories behind these faculty members’ personal drive to discover new knowledge and better our world. They are exploring topics such as the future of the internet, the impact of technology on women’s empowerment, the lived experience of adolescents and young adults with HIV and the role of storytelling in expanding our understanding of humanity. All are fiercely committed to working alongside students as co-inquirers and lifelong learners.

The Elon community is well-positioned to solve complex problems in an ever-changing world thanks to the leadership of these talented scholars and their peers. I hope their stories will inspire each of us to continue our own intellectual journey and reach for ever higher levels of knowledge and understanding.

President Connie Ledoux Book

Faculty members featured in the 2018 President’s Report

Haya Ajjan, associate professor of management information systems

Janna Anderson, professor of communications

Jeff Carpenter, associate professor of education

Geoffrey Claussen, associate professor of religious studies

Ben Evans, associate professor of physics

Cindy Fair, Watts/Thompson professor of public health studies and human service studies

Tom Mould, J. Earl Danieley professor of anthropology

Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler, professor of psychology

Faculty Scholars | Today at Elon | �þ���

In memory of Dr. John G. Sullivan, �þ���’s first Distinguished University Professor