German culture is my life and passion. I spend time nearly every year in Germany, Austria or Switzerland to keep my knowledge up-to-date. From my dissertation on, I have concentrated on 20th century German life and literature. My most recent research focuses on Holocaust literature and the recent literature of German unification.
The bear is the symbol of the city (Berlin).
Bears have a special display at the Berlin Zoo.
Berlin is my favorite city because I have so many friends there and because I have spent so much time observing the changes from a walled-in city to the new capital of Germany.
Students have to experience the language and the culture directly, so I regularly take students to Germany. In this picture from 1999, the Elmhurst College group is in Dresden.
I am being interviewed in 1999, by German television about a foreigner's perspective on keeping the old symbols of communism, like the East German Parliament Building, alive.
For years I kept busy after hours coaching these kids through soccer, baseball and swimming. More recently my wife and I have been paying their college tuition for the last ten years. We are looking forward to next May when Jorie graduates from college, and then next year we can visit her at graduate school, her brother Garth playing professional soccer and her brother Chad coaching college soccer.
My wife and I love to hike and take still pictures. One of the joys of my job is that I have to gotten to know German culture through frequent trips to Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Each country has spectacular hiking country.
Dutch Windmill in Potsdam, Germany Hiking in St. Moritz, Switzerland
