Sandra Bisciglia is a 1994 graduate of Carthage College. She received the very first Carthage College Distinguished Adult Learner Award and the Carthage Religion Department's Emma Johnson Award. Prof. Bisciglia worked in Roman Catholic religious education for nearly 20 years and is interested in Jewish-Christian dialogue. She is currently researching the native Italian Jews, known as the "Italyanim," as well as the relationship between Italian Jewish scholars and their secular and Christian counterparts in the early Modern period.

Prof. Bisciglia is investigating the history of Jewish communities in the city of Venice and other Adriatic coastal cities from northern to central Italy. The ancient and still extant Jewish ghettos of southern Italy are also of interest.

Her course offerings include Post-Exilic Judaism, Judaism, Jewish Bible, and Women and the Bible. She is in the process of completing a Master of Science and Doctor of Science in Jewish Studies at Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies in Chicago. Prof. Bisciglia joined the Carthage faculty in 2002.

Bonnie Flessen is a Ph.D. candidate in Biblical Studies (New Testament) at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago (LSTC). She graduated from Carthage in 1992 with a B.A. in Religion. She has a Master of Divinity from Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Iowa, and a Master of Theology degree from LSTC. Her specialty areas include biblical interpretation with regard to gender, and Acts of the Apostles. She first taught at Carthage in 1996.

David Garrett holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from Cardinal Stritch University and a M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School. His academic interests include Hebrew Bible, wisdom literature, faith narratives and their communities, and writing as a spiritual discipline. An active minister, he is on the teaching team and directs "The Project" college group at his church.

Ross Henry Larson has taught religion and public speech at Carthage since 1991. He has served as a Lutheran pastor in Chicago, St. Louis, and Racine, Wis. He's also served on the staff of the Chicago Synod, and as co-director of Post-Doctoral Education at the Lutheran School of Theology. He is proprietor of Gener\age of Racine, a consultation service on aging ministry, and was a staff writer for The Clergy Journal magazine. He is a resident of Racine, Wis.

Ken Lenz received undergraduate degrees in the areas of Christian education and sacred music, and a graduate degree in the area of pastoral training from Moody Bible Institute (Chicago, Ill.). He also holds a bachelor's degree in music from Nyack College and a master's degree in music from Cleveland State University. Other graduate studies and doctoral work were done at New York State University and Arizona State University. Currently Mr. Lenz is in a Ph.D. program with the American Conservatory of Music.

Mr. Lenz also served as a hospice chaplain, and was an assistant pastor and minister of music in several churches. His particular interests are in Biblical hermeneutics (interpretation) and Christian apologetics (evidences). He has taught in Bible colleges and writes in the area of New Testament interpretation.

Currently Mr. Lenz is writing a book on baptism, harmonizing the four Gospels into one narrative, organizing Proverbs thematically, and transcribing Renaissance motets into modern music notation. He is a published author and music arranger.

James G. Lochtefeld specializes in Hindu pilgrimage. His dissertation research focused on the north Indian pilgrimage city of Hardwar, and his dissertation draws on Sanskrit texts, archival documents and field research to lay out a comprehensive picture of this vibrant town. It will be published in late 2009 by Oxford University Press.

Aside from the Hindu tradition, he has taught courses on Indian religion and society, the Buddhist tradition, the Sikh tradition, East Asian religion, Sanskrit, and Hindi. He has led J-term trips to India in every odd-numbered year since 1999. In both his research and his teaching, he seeks to explore the intersection of religious history, tradition, and practice. His ongoing work examines how pilgrimage sites are being affected by the promotion of tourism, and by other social changes. He joined the Carthage faculty in 1992.

Thomas Long has taught the foundational course Understandings of Religion; upper-level courses in the history of Christian thought, Luther and the Reformation; and various disciplines of Heritage Studies.

Mr. Long's special interests are in the fields of inter-religious dialogue and the doctrine of the atonement. In 2006, his dissertation, "The Viability of a Sacrificial Theology of Atonement," was republished by Lutheran University Press for its 37 affiliate institutions of higher education in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Prior to coming to Carthage, he taught at Carroll and Lakeland Colleges and Marquette University. He holds degrees from Albion College (B.A., 1968), Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary (M.Div., 1974), Duke University (Th.M., 1990), and Marquette University (Ph.D., 1999). Tom lives with his wife, Carol, in Wauwatosa, Wis.

Romwald Maczka is an authority on the study of Christianity and Marxism. He has served as director of the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Marxism, has lectured frequently on Marxist historiography and Christian-Marxist relations in Eastern Europe, and has several years of ministerial experience in a missionary context.

As research associate of the Institute for the Study of Christianity and Marxism, he published "Christianity and Marxism in Higher Education" as well as several articles that appeared in the Lutheran Quarterly, Mennonite Quarterly Review and occasional papers on Religion and Eastern Europe. In 2006, Prof. Maczka was invited to serve as Eberhard Bethge Scholar in Residence at the Internationale Bonhoeffer Gesellsschaft in Berlin, Germany.

His interest in Christian-Mayan religious expression has taken him to the Guatemala highlands frequently in recent years and as part of an earlier sabbatical leave in 1997, he joined the faculty of the United Theological College in Bangalore, India, as a guest professor. In 1990 he participated on an inter-religious task force in the research of Soviet religious developments, an effort sponsored by the Soviet Committee on Youth Organizations and the American Center for International Leadership. In 1988 Prof. Maczka was invited to chair a subcommittee on religion of the U.S.-U.S.S.R. bilateral Emerging Leader Summit Conference.

Prof. Maczka has received research and educational grants from Stewards' Foundation, David D. Cook Foundation, Lilly Foundation, Richardson Foundation, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Bonhoeffer-Gesellschaft, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. He joined the Carthage faculty in 1989. Included in Maczka's course offerings are systematic theology, world religions, church history, monks and mystics, modern theology, holocaust, gendering God and Reformation history.

Yamine Mermer, associate professor of religion, comes to Carthage from Swarthmore College, where she was a lecturer in Arabic for three years. The native of Algeria earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Sciences and Technology of Algiers in 1980, then earned a master’s degree in theoretical physics and a Ph.D. in quantum physics from the University of Durham in the U.K. After teaching for 10 years in Istanbul, Turkey, she came to Indiana University, where she has pursued a Ph.D. in Islamic and Arabic studies. She also holds a teaching certificate in scriptural reasoning: scholarly study of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim texts, from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Christine Renaud came to Carthage in 1995 from Bucknell University. She has both studied and taught overseas. As a classical archaeologist, Prof. Renaud has excavated in the ancient agora of Athens (1980-82), the Forum of Rome (1987), the Greek city of Metaponto in southern Italy(1983-85), and Isthmia, Greece (Ohio State University, 2001). Since 2006, she has been a member of an Italian and American team excavating at the Villa delle Vignacce, a Roman villa in Rome's suburban area, where she serves as supervisor. In recent years, she has led class trips to Greece, Turkey, and Italy.

From 2003-2006, Prof. Renaud was the course director of the Racine Odyssey Project and has served on the Columbus Neighborhood Planning Committee. At Carthage she was the director of the Heritage Studies Program (1999-2002).

An expert in Latin literature, Roman art, archaeology, architecture, and Roman history, Prof. Renaud has taught at Bucknell University, Duquesne University, the University of Texas at Austin, and Wayne State University. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi. Overseas, she was an instructor in Rome for Temple University Abroad and for the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, then a Stanford Overseas program.

In 1986 she received the prestigious Fulbright-Hays Research Grant for Italy. Prof. Renaud earned her Ph.D. (Phi Kappa Phi) in classics and classical archaeology from University of Texas at Austin in 1990.

In addition to founding the classics program, now a department, at Carthage, she has given numerous papers on the Roman poet Vergil, interculturalism in the ancient world, and the emperor Domitian. She currently is working on creating an online topographical pictorial dictionary of ancient Rome with the American Institute for Roman Culture in Rome, of which she is an advisor. Prof. Renaud is also a member of the Association of Core Texts and Curriculum, the American Philological Association, and the American Institute of Archaeology.

Dan Schowalter's academic interests include archaeology, the development of the New Testament, honors offered to the Roman Emperors, and the modern dialogue between science and religion. He serves on the steering committee for the Archaeology and Religion in the Greco-Roman World section for the Society of Biblical Literature, and is associate director of the Carthage College/Macalester College excavation at Omrit in northern Israel. He is a contributor to "The Cities of Paul: Images and Interpretations from the Harvard New Testament Archaeology Project," a DVD released by Fortress Press. Along with Steve Friesen, he is co-editor of "Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches," from Harvard University Press.

Prof. Schowalter was the featured Bible Lecturer at the 2005 annual meeting of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches, and has lectured extensively at Biblical Archaeological Society programs for more than 10 years.

Prof. Schowalter's course offerings include Creation and Apocalypse, the Gospels and Acts, Women and the New Testament, Letters of the New Testament and Greek. He also teaches in the Heritage Studies program. He joined the Carthage faculty in 1989.

Lynn Tracy has a bachelor's degree in psychology from Carthage College and a master's degree in theological studies from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. She teaches the course called Issues in Living and Dying (RELI 230) at Carthage. She works full time as the manager of community engagement for United Way of Lake County, Ill. She lives in Beach Park, Ill., with her husband, Michael Tracy Sr.

Christian D. Von Dehsen has a balanced background, having worked as an assistant pastor and a research associate before joining the Carthage faculty in 1988. He was the Book Review Editor for the Lutheran Forum and has published a collaborated book, "Policy and Politics: The Genesis and Theology of Social Statements in the Lutheran Church in America." At present he is interested in traditions related to the role of Peter in the early church.

Prof. Von Dehsen's course offerings include the Pentateuch, Christologies of the New Testament, Greek, and Introduction to the New Testament. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.