John Hawthorne

John Hawthorne

John Hawthorne is professor of sociology and chair of the department of sociology, global studies, and criminal justice at Spring Arbor University. He has devoted his career to Christian higher education, serving as classroom teacher and administrator. He earned his BS, MS, and PhD in sociology at Purdue University, specializing in the sociology of religion and social psychology. He taught sociology at Olivet Nazarene University and Sterling College. He served as VP for Continuing Education at Sterling, VPAA at Warner Pacific College, and Provost at Point Loma Nazarene University before returning to the classroom at Spring Arbor in 2011. His time as an academic administrator gave birth to study in the nature of Christian higher education and the emerging shape of learning and teaching.

John has two active research projects. One involves a fresh approach to explaining Christian higher education beginning with students and building from there. The culmination of this is a book from Wipf and Stock expected out in 2014. The second related project is exploring how contemporary young evangelicals exhibit the patterns corresponding to emerging adulthood. This continues on the assumptions of the first project that this generation is, as David Kinnaman puts it in You Lost Me, “discontinuously different” from previous generations.

John and his wife, Jeralynne (who is also teaching at Spring Arbor), have two adult children. Niki lives in Denver with her husband and works as a political consultant. Matt lives in Indianapolis with his wife and works for the Central Indiana Chapter of the American Red Cross. John’s personal interests include reading, biking, and bowling. He is a non-repentant political junkie.