I believe undergraduate education should impart empirical and conceptual information to empower students in critically assessing their world and showing them how social problems can be resolved. Two major objectives structure my courses. The first is getting students to understand how their own lives and those around them are shaped by larger, external forces (e.g., culture, history, economics, politics, and institutions, etc.). A second is challenging students to comprehend that how we learn things and what we learn (i.e., epistemology) will impact how our society changes and addresses problems in the past, present and future.