Diane M. Badzinski

Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison

Diane M. Badzinski is Professor of Communication and Chair of the Department of Communication at Colorado Christian University. She has authored several books on relationships. Family Communication and the Christian Faith: An Introduction and Exploration (with Jonathan Pettigrew, Integratio Press) helps readers develop informed attitudes and habits that will sustain godly and rewarding family experiences throughout their lives. This text presents research-based, biblically informed practical advice on topics that families face, including how to love and connect with one another, handle conflict, give and receive forgiveness, develop resilience to life’s inevitable stressors, manage daily household tasks, strengthen marriages, train children, and leave family legacies. An Essential Guide to Interpersonal Communication: Building Great Relationships with Skill, Faith, and Virtue in the Age of Social Media (with Quentin Schultze, Baker, 2015) identifies keys to relational flourishing—show gratitude, listen attentively, encourage others, promote peace, extend forgiveness, celebrate together—and offers a Christian perspective on the influence of social media on relationships.

Diane’s research also focuses on the ways social media helps or hinders the spread of faith-based messages. This work has been published in several edited volumes: Evangelicals and Popular Culture: Pop Goes the Gospel (Praeger); and Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought from Athanasius to Desmond Tutu (Hendrickson).

Diane has taught both graduate and undergraduate courses in communication research and in interpersonal, family, cross-cultural, and nonverbal communication, among others. She has received awards for her research and teaching including a “Faculty Scholarship” award, Colorado Christian University, an “Outstanding Affiliate Faculty” award, Spring Arbor University, as well as “Apple Awards” for contributions to students and “Favorite Professor” awards presented from student athletes to their favorite teacher, Colorado Christian University.

Stephanie Bennett

Ph.D., Regent University

Stephanie Bennett is Professor of Communication and Media Ecology at Palm Beach Atlantic University where for the last 17 years she has practiced an interdisciplinary approach to the classroom, integrating faith, culture, and communication within a contemplative frame. Along with a full-time appointment teaching courses in Interpersonal, Nonverbal, Civil Discourse and the Common Good and Communication Ethics, The Church in the Age of Entertainment and Music as Communication, Stephanie spent several years as University Fellow for Student Engagement and a decade as Associate Dean of the School of Communication and Media. Currently, she serves as Director of Wordship—a campus-wide initiative to advance the use of words as an act of worship and a way to nurture healing and reconciliation in the public square. Author of five books, including Within the Walls, a fictional trilogy about the future of community, her latest project is non-fiction and draws upon the dialectical relationship between speech and silence. Released in March 2022, Silence, Civility, and Sanity: Hope for Humanity in a Digital Age is published by Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield. Stephanie is committed to helping undergraduates navigate the relational, interpersonal, and ethical challenges in an evolving digital culture. She invites dialogue at Stephanie_Bennett@pba.edu.

Sean Connable

Ph.D., University of Memphis

Sean Connable (PhD, University of Memphis) is Senior Lecturer at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. His teaching and research interests include fundamentalism, constitutive rhetoric, and identity; leadership theory; faith and mediated culture; as well as the exploration of a rhetorical approach he calls the “constitutive frame.” He currently serves on the board of Deeper Still Missions, a nonprofit missions support agency, aiding them in research and analysis that is used to assist and mentor missionaries presently active in the mission field. He recently delivered a TEDx presentation that explored the question “How do we talk about leadership differently?” and how asking this simple question may change everything we think we know about leading others. When not at the University, he can often be found in the company of his wife and two beautiful children somewhere in Newport News, VA. 

Gillette Elvgren

Ph.D., Florida State University

Gillette Elvgren created and led the MFA programs in Directing at the University of Pittsburgh and Regent University in Virginia Beach. While in Pittsburgh he served as staff director for the professional Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival, as well as full-time tenured faculty member at the University. He co-founded Saltworks Theatre Company, a professional faith-based theatre group that tours in the Tri-State area, as well as directing for the New City Theatre. Several of his productions in both Pittsburgh and Virginia Beach were heralded as “Best of the Year” in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and Portfolio Magazine in Virginia Beach. He is also a playwright with over 8,000 performances of his plays performed in the United States and Canada. His publications include articles in Children’s Theatre Review, Educational Theatre Journal, Modern Drama, Dictionary Of Literary Biography, Steel/City (with Attilio Favorini), Image Journal, and Christianity And Theatre. Several of his scripts have been published by Blue Moon Plays and Christians in Theatre Arts. Dr. Elvgren is presently Emeritus Professor of Communication and the Arts at Regent University where he continues to teach at the graduate level.

Kevin T. Jones

Ph.D., Louisiana State University

Kevin T. Jones is professor and Chair of the Department of Communication and Cinematic Arts at George Fox University. For over 35 years, Dr. Jones has taught courses such as interpersonal communication, public speaking, persuasion, research methods, small group communication, mass media, rhetorical theory, political communication, argumentation and debate, and senior capstone. He has published nearly 40 books, book chapters, and journal articles on topics ranging from what the Bible teaches about communication, to televised presidential debates, to rhetoric and pop culture, and teaching communication skills to at-risk middle school students. Dr. Jones has received numerous awards for teaching and for his scholarship. He has been elected and served as the president of numerous local and national professional organizations including the Religious Communication Association, the Northwest Communication Association, and the National Christian College Forensics Association. Dr. Jones is an avid cyclist and lives with his wife, Michelle, and their four children in Newberg, Oregon.

Paul Patton

Ph.D., Regent University

Paul Patton is Professor Emeritus of Communication and Theater at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. It was while pastoring at Trinity Church in Livonia, Michigan, that he founded Trinity House Theater in 1981. He is the author of over 30 produced stage plays, radio plays, and performance essays. He is contributing author to the books, Understanding Evangelical Media (IVP), Evangelical Christians and Popular Culture (Praeger), and Prophetic Critique and Popular Culture (Peter Lang), and co-author of Prophetically (In)Correct: A Christian Introduction to Media Criticism (Brazos Press), and the newly published, Everyday Sabbath: How to Lead Your Dance with Media and Technology in Mindful and Sacred Ways (Cascade Books).

Jonathan Pettigrew

Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University

Jonathan Pettigrew is a Professor at Arizona State University who is devoted to seeing families and relationships thrive. He works side-by-side with community members to create novel health intervention materials that serve youth, families, schools, and society. He participates in numerous interdisciplinary projects that involve designing, delivering, and evaluating health interventions through partnerships with communities in the United States and worldwide. He is faculty with the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication and is an affiliated scientist with ASU’s REACH Institute. He is co-editor of the book Professing Christ: Christian Tradition and Faith-learning Integration in Public Universities (Integratio Press, 2022) and has published in academic journals including Journal of Adolescent Research, Journal of Family Communication, Marriage & Family Review, and Journal of Divorce and Remarriage. 

Quentin Schultze

Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Quentin Schultze is CCSN Senior Fellow and Professor Emeritus at Calvin University, where he received the Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching. He has written many articles and books, including Communicating with Grace and Virtue, An Essential Guide to Public Speaking, An Essential Guide to Interpersonal Communication, Résumé 101, Communicating for Life, and Communicate Like a True Leader. Dr. Schultze was one of the founders of the Gospel Communications Network, which created the online Bible Gateway. He serves on the Board of Directors of Baker Publishing Group. He leads teaching, publishing, and faith-integration seminars online and at universities and seminaries. 

Kevin Schut

Ph.D., University of Iowa

Kevin Schut is a Game Studies scholar. He wrote the book Of Games & God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games (2013). He writes about the intersection of communication, culture, media, technology and faith, primarily by talking about computer and video games. He has published articles or chapters on fantasy-role-playing computer games and masculinity, on computer games and myth, on the presentation of history in computer games, and on evangelicals and games. He is currently researching moral and ethical decisions in video games.

Kevin served as the Chair of the Department of Media + Communication, and he is the Lead for the Game Development program he founded in June 2019. He has also served as Associate Dean of the School of the Arts, Media + Culture. He teaches a range of courses on media and culture.

Kevin grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, and still cheers for the Oilers. After graduating from Calvin College, he married and taught overseas in schools for missionary kids in the Cote d’Ivoire and Hungary for three and a half years. He has three daughters who love playing board games, adventure games, Mario Kart, and Vive Virtual Reality with him. His favorite game series is Sid Meier’s Civilization.

Gregory Spencer

Ph.D., University of Oregon

Gregory Spencer taught about words, perception, narrative, and the importance of questions for thirty-five years at Westmont College. He is now Professor Emeritus. He has published two novels (The Welkening and Guardian of the Veil) and is currently working on a third, Boomer Boy. He’s also published three works of nonfiction (A Heart for Truth, Awakening the Quieter Virtues, and Reframing the Soul: How Words Transform Our Faith), and dozens of articles, poems, and op-ed pieces. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA, with his wife of over forty years. They have three married daughters and eightgrandchildren, six of whom live too far away. He enjoys gardening, tennis, hiking, and asking involved dinner questions.

Mark Williams

Ph.D., Louisiana State University

Mark A. E.  Williams is a past president of the Religious Communication Association and a professor of rhetoric in the Communication Studies Department of California State University, Sacramento, where he teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in communication and religion, rhetorical criticism, and the history of rhetoric with an emphasis on the premodern era. He is a former Research Fellow of both Oxford University and the École Biblique et Archéologique de Jérusalem. He is an adult convert to Catholicism and was confirmed in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher toward the end of the last century while working on his dissertation in Jerusalem.

His writings include “St. Socrates, Pray for Us: Rhetoric and the Physics of Being Human” in Rhetoric in the Twenty-first Century: An Interactive Oxford Symposium, “From Here to Eternity: The Cost of Misreading Plato’s Religion” in The Global Landscape of Faith, “Anselm of Canterbury: Solemnity and Humility Beyond All Words” in Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought from Athanasius to Desmond Tutu, “Substantive Discourse: Love, Justice, and Hierarchy as the Basis for Civility” in Humility and Hospitality, and “Integrating Secular Faith and Navel Gazing” in Professing Christ.   

His books include Well-behaved Words (an introductory text on public speaking), Essential Latin Vocabulary (an introductory study guide for students of Latin), and the forthcoming Just Words, a consideration of the connections between education, rhetoric, religion, and justice in ancient Athens. Left to his own devices, he will indulge his Tolkien addiction, bind books by hand, write just for fun, and think about things. He is married to a scientist who keeps him grounded. They have two adult children.

Naaman Wood

Ph.D., Regent University

Naaman Wood served as Assistant Professor of Media and Communication at Redeemer University College and has taught communication courses at Tidewater Community College, Spring Arbor University, and courses in theology and culture at Northwest University. He is co-editor of Words and Witnesses: Communication Studies in Christian Thought from Athanasius to Desmond Tutu and the forthcoming Humility and Hospitality: Changing the Christian Conversation on Civility (Integratio Press). His work has been published in the journals Symbolic Interaction, Jazz Perspectives, and the books Prophetic Critique and Popular Media: Theoretical Foundations and Practical Applications, and More than “Precious Memories”: Critical Essays on the Rhetoric of Southern Gospel. Wood has also completed a M.T.S. and Th.M. at Duke Divinity School. He currently serves as a faculty member in communication at Saint Paul College in Minnesota.

Richard Young

M.A., California State University

Richard Young found theater in high school when he followed a cute girl into a drama club meeting (he fell in love, and not just with her). Richard earned his BA in Theater from California State University, Hayward, his MA in Theater from California State University, Fresno, and his MFA in Directing from Lindenwood University. Professor Young has taught theater at Greenville University, Blackburn College, and Bethel University in Indiana. He was a member of and director for Lamb’s Players Theater in California. He was co-founder and artistic director of the Summer Repertory Theater at Blackburn College. His plays have been published by I. E. Clark, Dramatic Publishing, and Eldridge Publishing. His play Bread for Their Mouths, Fire for Their Souls won the 2017 Searchlight Theater playwriting competition.