Dean’s Office

Jennifer Prough, ’91 Ph.D., Professor of Humanities and East Asian Studies, is pleased to serve as Interim Dean of Christ College. As a Christ College and Valparaiso alumna, Jennifer is deeply devoted to the transformative experience that a cohort-based, interdisciplinary honors education, delivered by a dedicated faculty, can provide. She served as Interim Dean of Christ College in 2017-2018. In 2021, Jennifer stepped back into the role of Interim Dean with a commitment to facilitating holistic educational experiences of the highest caliber to a more diverse community of honors students.

Prough earned a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Duke University in 2006. She joined the Valpo faculty in 2005. Her teaching and research interests include the anthropology of media, anthropology of tourism, Japanese studies, gender studies, and globalization. At the heart of Prough’s research and teaching interests are issues of representation and the ways that cultural meanings are produced and managed, experienced, and interpreted through mass culture. Her first book, Straight from the Heart: Gender, Intimacy, and the Cultural Production of Shōjo Manga (University of Hawai’i Press, 2011), examines the production of girls’ comics in Japan through ethnographic analysis. Her most recent book, Kyoto Revisited: Heritage Tourism in Contemporary Kyoto (University of Hawai’i Press, 2022), analyzes the ways that tradition, history, and culture are produced, packaged, promoted, and consumed in the Kyoto tourist industry.

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Anna Stewart joined Valparaiso University in 2012 as a Lilly Postdoctoral Fellow and has taught courses for the English department, Christ College, and the College of Arts & Sciences. Stewart received her B.A. in English and Spanish from the University of South Carolina (with honors from the South Carolina Honors College).  She went on to complete her master’s and Ph.D. in English at the University of Texas at Austin, where she focused on African American literature, book history and textual studies, and race and gender studies. Stewart serves as the CC academic advisor and enjoys working with students as they consider opportunities on campus as well as competitive fellowships, graduate programs, and other possibilities beyond their undergraduate education.

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Brett M. Calland joined Valparaiso University in 2004 serving as a Lecturer specializing in first-year courses critical to the student experience.  He has taught for the CORE first year program, the Academic Success Strategies course, the exploratory discernment course, and for the History Department.  He is joining Christ College from the College of Arts and Science, where he worked as an Academic Advisor, helping students build and navigate their four year plan to graduation.  He received his B.S. in History and 6-12 Education, from Manchester University, before going onto Ball State University to earn his first Master of Arts in History.  Brett has also earned a second Master of Arts, in Clinical Mental Health Counseling, from Valparaiso University.  Calland serves as the CC assistant to the Dean and enjoys working with prospective students as they join campus, current students while they engage on campus as well the alumni as they continue to support and connect to campus.    

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Sharon Dybel provides valuable administrative support to both the CC Dean’s staff and the CC faculty. She implements and monitors programs, procedures and policies that enhance the workflow of the College. Sharon additionally assists with the CC First-Year Program.