I serve as Associate Professor of Education in the Adult, Organizational Learning and Leadership Program in the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences at the University of Idaho.  I was educated at Penn State, receiving a Ph.D.  in Adult Education with a focus on ethical development in community based contexts. My B.A. and M.A. are in philosophy, also from Penn State. Currently, I am Co-Editor-in-Chief of Adult Learning.

My work is to understand and improve adult learning.  My research focuses on individual, organizational, and community capacity building, especially within the framework of adult learning and agency.  The specific contexts for these investigations include religious organizations, public schools, online education, and doctoral and graduate education. With this foundation, specific projects revolve around: adult learning within organizations and communities; adult moral agency, ethical development, and spiritual growth; adult learning in distance education and technology; and the methodological foundations exploring these phenomena.

Organizations and communities, at the macro-level, and individual learners, at the micro-level, frame adult learning. The interface of the macro and micro-levels is also called the interface of structure and agency.  Understanding that interface involves exploring the characteristics of organizations and communities that facilitate learning (structures) and the qualities and actions of learners within those organizations and communities (agency), as well as the mutual influence one has on the other (the interface). My teaching, research, outreach, and service are focused on this framework for adult learning and are guided by my belief that an effective learning community is educationally purposeful, open, just, disciplined, caring, and celebrative[1].

[1] Earnest L. Boyer, frwd.Campus Life: In Search of Community (Princeton, New Jersey: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990).

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