About

You’ll find more details about me in other documents on this site, but here are the basics: I was born in Berea in 1949 while my father was a student here at the college.  He graduated from Berea, completed Law School at UK, and became an FBI agent.  My mother was a nurse.  After completing high school in Southern California, I received an appointment to the Air Force Academy and graduated in 1971 with a degree in Engineering Management.  I attended UCLA where I earned a Masters in Industrial Relations in 1972.  Army/Air Force Helicopter Training was next.  My first operational assignment was as a super jolly green giant helicopter pilot (HH-53) to Hickam AFB, Hawaii where I remained for the next 7 years acquiring qualifications as a race relations instructor, equal opportunity and treatment officer, aircraft maintenance officer, and functional check flight pilot.  I returned to the Air Force Academy to the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership, but two years later was assigned as the executive officer for a rescue helicopter squadron at RAF Woodbridge in England.  Two years later, I entered Oxford University to read for my doctorate in experimental cognitive psychology with Donald Broadbent as my supervisor.  Returning to the Air Force Academy in 1986, I spent the rest of my Air Force career as an educator.  I served as a consultant evaluator for 3 accreditation associations (NCA, WASC, & SACS) and was one of about a dozen consultants who helped establish Western Governors University.  In 2001, I retired from the Air Force and returned to Berea College as the Academic Vice President and Provost.  Five years later, after a very successful accreditation visit and a 30% increase in the college’s graduation rate, I returned to the classroom as a tenured professor in the Psychology Department.  My students achieved great success both at Berea and in a variety of professional and social science graduate programs afterwards.  In 2018, I developed a survey of attitudes and opinions about academic freedom and hostile environments as part of a course I was teaching in industrial/organizational psychology.  I was suspended, banished from campus, prohibited from communicating with students, and data from our survey was embargoed.  Three months later, I was found to have violated my professional responsibility to maintain confidentiality, my tenure was ended and I was dismissed from the college.  I now consider myself a professor in exile.  I have filed suit against the college for discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, and numerous violations of administrative due process.  As a military officer, I swore many times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.  My current circumstance is a consequence of that commitment.  I have two good kids and 5 truly great grandkids (although the eldest is in his mid-20s now).  I have a great dog and a wonderful woman keeping me busy here in Berea where we still make our home.  I appreciate you visiting my site.