Programs
Faculty and Staff Development Opportunities
The Institute offers opportunities for faculty and staff from across the disciplines to connect under a shared mission of transforming and integrating the paradigms and pedagogies of liberal arts and the professions. Faculty and staff can make these connections through:
Research and Scholarship
Collaborative Scholarly/Creative Project Mini-Seminar
In a mini-seminar, small interdisciplinary groups meet throughout the year as each works on their collaborative project. For 2025-2026, the theme is "Trust and Institutions." Projects are:
Creighton Computing for Good Application Development Lab
Catherine Baker, PhD, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Kevin Lumbard, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Sherri Weitl-Harms, PhD, Associate Professor of Computer Science
Steven Fernandes, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Waseq Rahman, PhD, Assistant Professor of Journalism
The goal of this research is to construct an interdisciplinary service-learning framework for sustainable student-led software development projects, improving their usefulness, trustworthiness, and endurance. As part of the project, the team aims to hire students and develop a software application to reduce food waste on campus.
Public Discussion Practice: Cultivating Trust in Institutions
Anne Ozar, PhD, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Philosophy
Jay Leighter, PhD, Associate Professor of Communication Studies, and Director, Sustainability Studies
This project responds to the decline in opportunities for face-to-face public discussion. The team hopes to bring together community members, Creighton students, and topical experts for the purpose of meaningfully discussing complex challenges with human-centered responses. The team aims to examine the conditions unique to individual and local community trust in, for example, healthcare and education, while also exploring how broader changes in public discussion opportunities foster or inhibit trust in institutions.
Parallel Projects
Brooke Kowalke, PhD, Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and Laura Roost, Resident Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, are working on individual projects in concert with one another. Roost’s book project, Living Together or Living Divided: Care and Transitional Justice, considers the implications of care ethics for transitional justice. Kowalke’s project, “Dancing with the Forms: Linguistic Risk in Non-Speaking Autistic Poets’ Works,” aims to bring attention to the multiply-marginalized voices of non-speaking autistic persons.
Candace Bloomquist, PhD, associate professor in the EdD in Interdisciplinary Leadership, and Peggy Rupprecht, PhD, associate professor of journalism and public relations, will receive project development funds for promising ideas in early stages.
Reading Groups
Summer 2025 Book Club
The Malcolm X Memorial Foundation and the Kingfisher Institute are co-hosting a summer book club to align with the 100th anniversary of Malcolm X’s birth in Omaha (as Malcolm Little). The book is called Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, By Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith. JoAnna LeFlore-Ejike, executive director of the Malcolm X Memorial Foundation, will lead the discussions. All students, faculty/staff, alumni, neighbors, and friends are welcome!
The group will meet in June and twice in July. In-person and Zoom participation will be available. Limited free books will be available. To be notified when dates are finalized, please email kingfisher@creighton.edu.
Keep an eye out for periodic reading groups, such as the Martin Luther King Jr. Reading Group each fall. Want to start a reading group? Email us: kingfisher@creighton.edu
Curriculum Innovation
To integrate content related to our initiatives into courses at all levels, the Institute regularly invites Creighton faculty members to apply for curriculum development grants.
2024-2025 Grantees:
- Kimberley Begley, PharmD, Professor of Pharmacy Practice: Enhancing Competency-Based Training in Pharmacy Through Longitudinal Simulation-Based Entrustable Professional Activity (EPA)
- Christian L. Janousek, JD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations: PLS/HAP 334: Public Policy and Healthcare
- Miranda Little, OTD, OTR/L, PMH-C, Assistant Professor, Occupational Therapy: Maternal and Infant Health OT Specialty Track
- Margo Minnich DNP, RN, Assistant Professor, and Becky Davis, DNP, RN, Assistant Professor, College of Nursing: Population-Based Health Concepts II: Integrating Sustainable Development Goals
- Shawn Magrum, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Exercise Science & Pre-Health Professions: Humanistic Anatomy in EXS 331
- Peggy Rupprecht, PhD, Associate Professor of Public Relations: Focused on feedback: Introducing “ungrading” in an upper-level public relations course, JRM 445
- Jacob Rump, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy: PHL 433 Philosophy and Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
- Tyler Talbott, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of English: ENG 220 Queer Literature and Cinema
Visiting Fellows Program
Fall 2025: Eric Avery, MD: Artist, retired psychiatrist, public health activist
- Visiting fellowship: week of Sept. 21, 2025
- Art exhibition: Sept. 4-Oct. 5, Lied Art Gallery
Spring 2025: Sarah Blanton, PT, DPT
Our visiting fellows program brings prominent scholars, artists, and leaders to Creighton to engage intentionally with students, faculty and staff. Our Spring 2025 Visiting Fellow was Sarah Blanton, PT, DPT, a professor in the Division of Physical Therapy at Emory University School of Medicine; and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation.
From March 17-19, 2025, she met with various groups and classes at Creighton, bringing her expertise to complement Creighton's focus on whole-person, humanistic healthcare.
Dr. Blanton is an NIH-funded researcher, with several grants exploring the integration of family care partners into the rehabilitation process. Dr. Blanton’s DISCOVER Lab (Digital Scholarship Enhancing Rehabilitation) explores various ways digital scholarship can enhance rehabilitation research, education, and clinical practice and promote interdisciplinary collaboration. She is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Humanities in Rehabilitation (JHR), an international and peer-reviewed journal using a collaborative model with scholars, clinicians, patients, and their families to gain a greater understanding of the lived experience of disability.
