Faculty

Dr. Craig A. Campbell's doctoral degree focused on community development and international and popular education. Currently, he is working on a capstone project toward acquiring a second master's degree in cross-cultural studies with emphasis on indigenous knowledge systems. His research interests include nonformal and informal learning, international adult education, folk schools, popular education, University and Cooperative Extension, distance education, qualitative research methodologies, the Tribal College movement, and indigenous knowledge systems. The commonalities among these seemingly disparate areas are rural place–based knowledges and access to education.

Dr. José Cossa is a Mozambican scholar, writer/author, researcher, poet, blogger, “twitterer,” podcaster, entrepreneur, and associate professor in the College of Education at Penn State. Cossa holds a Ph.D. in cultural and educational policy studies with a depth area in comparative and international education from Loyola University Chicago. He is the author of the book Power, Politics, and Higher Education in Southern Africa: International Regimes, Local Governments, and Educational Autonomy; the recipient of the 2012 Joyce Cain Award for Distinguished Research on People of African Descent; a co-founder of AI4Afrika; and a member of the MacArthur Foundation 100&Change Panel of Judges for two consecutive years (2018 Inaugural Challenge and 2019). Cossa’s research focuses on adult online and distance education, education in Africa, African Renaissance, and power dynamics in negotiation over educational policy; unveiling issues inherent in the promise of modernity and working toward de-colonializing, de-bordering, de-peripherizing, and de-centering the world; higher education policy and administration; system transfer; international development; global and social justice; and related topics. Cossa is engaged in a new (exterior to modernity) theorizing, which he coined as Cosmo-uBuntu. Cossa has taught in South Africa, Egypt, and the United States.

Dr. William C. Diehl is an assistant associate professor of education in the lifelong learning and adult education program. He is also the coordinator of online graduate programs and lead faculty. Dr. Diehl is the director of The American Center for the Study of Distance Education and associate editor of The American Journal of Distance Education. His research includes foundations of distance and adult education, online teaching competencies, emerging technologies, and intercultural communication. He serves as an adviser to the graduate assistant group and Lifelong Learning and Adult Education GSA group.

John D. Holst is an Associate Professor of Lifelong Learning and Adult Education. He teaches graduate courses on social theory, adult learning theory, globalization, and Paulo Freire. He is the author of the book Social Movements, Civil Society, and Radical Adult Education (2002), co-author along with Stephen Brookfield of the book Radicalizing Learning: Adult Education for a Just World (2011), and co-editor along with Nico Pizzolato of the book, Antonio Gramsci: A Pedagogy to Change the World (2017).  His research focuses on theory development for and case studies of the social justice tradition in adult education.

Dr. Rebecca Tarlau is an assistant professor of education and labor and employment. Her ethnographic research agenda has three broad areas of focus: theories of the state and state-society relations; social movements, critical pedagogy, and learning; and Latin American education and development.