I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Organizational Leadership at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.  I have taught at Gonzaga for 23 years; before that I taught English, drama, and religion at secondary schools in Los Angeles and Spokane, and was Vice Principal for five years at Gonzaga Preparatory School.  At Gonzaga University, I have served as the Executive Assistant to the University President, the Director of Distance Learning for the School of Professional Studies, and Chairperson of the Department of Organizational Leadership.  Besides my teaching and administrative duties in Organizational Leadership, I am a member of an international team of Jesuits and lay colleagues working on a project called Jesuit Commons, which attempts to link Jesuit educational work with Jesuit social work around the world, and I am the director of an educational institute called the Convivencia Institute, which is located in the 3-dimensional virtual world of Second Life; my “avatar” name there is Micael Khandr.

     I have been married for 35 years and my wife and I have five daughters, four of whom have graduated from Gonzaga University, with the fifth one graduating in May 2010.  My wife and I care for her aging mother in our household, so there are often three generations of women in the house!

     Each summer I travel to Florence, Italy, to team-teach a course with my good friend and colleague Dr. John Caputo.  The photo above was taken of me a few years ago from the top of the Duomo there, with a view of Florence in the background. Each Fall and Spring I also teach a course on community that includes one week at St. Andrew’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery located in the upper Mojave Desert of Southern California.