I am a teacher in the Social Work Dept at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, where for the past eight years I have taught courses in human development, psychotherapy, and social work and the law (I also have a law degree). I am a long time member of the American Humanist Association and the Society for Humanistic Judaism.(I started the first-ever Reconstructionist Havurah in St.Louis in the early 1980s.) I was born in 1952, and grew up in Steubenville, Ohio.I lived on Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in Israel for one year, after high school. I did my undergraduate studies in psychology and political science, and graduate studies in social work and law, all at Washington University in St.Louis. I also lived in Kansas City for a few years, before moving to Topeka in 1989 to work as a clinical social worker and administrator at the Menninger Clinic (psychiatric hosptital) in Topeka. I am divorced, and enjoy having a good friendship with my former spouse and my two step-daughters.