In May 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I began recording a podcast entitled "A Church Dismantled--A Kingdom Restored." I have also created "A Light Still Shines--Reflections in Advent 2020" that can be found as Season 2 in the "A Church Dismantled" podcast and tagged as Advent.
I am married to Heidi Kanagy, MSW, LSW and together we are the Lead Ministry Couple at Elizabethtown Mennonite Church. I am a Professor of Sociology at Elizabethtown College, and Heidi and I are the parents of Jacob, married to Sarah, and the grandparents of Ezra.
EDUCATION
B.A. (1986), Sociology and Anthropology, Wheaton College (IL); M.S. (1990) and Ph.D. (1993), Rural Sociology, Penn State
RESEARCH AND TEACHING
I came to Elizabethtown College in 1993 and has served in a variety of both teaching and administrative capacities. I was the founding Director of the Honors Program from 1999-2005 and also served as Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology from 2014-2020.
I initiated the return of the Criminal Justice major and have been teaching courses in the program as well as working to development important partnerships with local criminal justice-related agencies that provide research, internship, and networking opportunities. Under my guidance, the program has developed a niche that focuses on criminal justice reform and inmate reentry—two cutting edge realities that both state and federal governments are addressing in part because of the high cost of incarceration as well as the new recognition that a criminal justice system primarily focused on punishment and retribution is not successfully creating paths to reintegrate former inmates back into their communities.
I teach Discovering Society, Race and Ethnic Relations, Sociological Theory, Criminology and the Criminal Justice System. In addition, a diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease four years ago has led to a new interest in aging and gerontology, and along with Dr. Tamera Humbert, developed a course entitled Aging, Regeneration, and Spirituality—that introduces students to the challenges and opportunities that the aging process creates. In this course, students attend “Rock Steady Boxing” workout sessions for folks with Parkinson’s Disease, spend in-depth time with an aging adult over the course of the semester, visit the local Senior Center, interact with guest speakers—both gerontology experts as well as older adults—and write a major paper that integrates their learning with the rapidly growing literature on aging.