Like many children of his generation, David Gunkel grew up dreaming of becoming an astronaut.
He came closer than most, earning a commission to the U.S. Naval Academy. His plan was to pull good grades there, move on to the cockpit of a fighter jet and then ultimately into a space capsule. Before that could happen, however, military doctors decided he didn’t have the right stuff.
That hasn’t stopped him from working in space, however. He just traded outer space for cyberspace. In the end, it has proven to be a good swap, he says. The arrival of the space shuttle made orbital flight almost mundane, while the explosion of information technology has opened up vast new vistas to be explored.
Today Gunkel is considered one of the leading thinkers in the area of information and communication technology, researching the philosophical dimensions of the exchange of information on the digital frontier. A philosopher by training, his classes are a unique blend that combines the alphabet soup of the digital age (HTML, JPEG, bits and bytes) with a liberal seasoning of commentary from great thinkers such as Hegel, Kant and Descartes.
The goal of that approach, says Gunkel, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy, is not just to teach students how to use computers, but rather to help them become engaged critical thinkers and creative problem solvers. He strives to cultivate in them a cultural literacy that helps consider the possibilities that technology creates.
His students attest to his success in doing so.
“Professor Gunkel’s teaching is second to none,” says former student Timothy Bond, who now works in sports information at Missouri State University. “He has a knack for instilling in the student not only the knowledge to succeed, but the diverse means in which knowledge can be applied to other areas of life.”
Others have been so moved by Gunkel’s teaching that it literally changed the course of their lives.
“It would not be an exaggeration to say that it completely changed the course of my academic career,” wrote former student Paul Booth, who had planned a career as a documentary filmmaker but is now a newly minted assistant professor of new media at DePaul University. “After spending a semester with Dr. Gunkel, and watching his obvious enjoyment of the subject matter, I decided to switch emphases.”
As a Presidential Teaching Professor, Gunkel hopes to share some of that excitement with peers by demonstrating to other faculty that communication technology can be used to enrich just about any subject. Whether it be exploring the limits of what can be accomplished in a PowerPoint presentation, or recreating ancient worlds in the virtual realm of Second Life, technology can be harnessed to illuminate ideas in new and exciting ways he says.
“I think part of my calling – my duty – as a Presidential Teaching Professor is to help people see something that can be transformative of their pedagogy,” Gunkel says. “We are teaching a generation that is very technologically engaged, it would be silly of us not to use the tools and the things that they connect with and understand.”