Research Interests:
After spending nearly 20 years as a behavioral neuroscience professor doing basic lab bench work on dopamine systems, reward, and motivation brain mechanisms in laboratory animals, and then after spending nearly another 20 years as a senior academic administrator as Dean, Provost, and Interim President at three institutions, my interests now lie in the combination. Specifically, how does basic behavioral neuroscience inform our thinking about the practice of experiential education (Ex Ed) as a compliment to a strong classical college curriculum? This topic was the basis of my recent 2017 book, Education that Works: The Neuroscience of Building a more Effective Higher Education. Now that I am back to the faculty, I am interested in reflection/engagement and how affect and cognition work together in Ex Ed. I am interested in lessons learned from other fields ranging from social psychology to art, in applying Ex Ed thinking to college student understanding of diversity issues, in student development of soft-skills and wisdom through Ex Ed, and in applying these lessons to improvement of student engagement in basic classroom teaching using a flipped-hybrid course model.