Dr. Shelby serves as the Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Evansville. He earned his PhD from the University of Louisville in applied sociology. As a former assistant professor of sociology, he taught several core courses, including Race and Ethnic Relations and Community Organization. Under his leadership, the Director of the Center for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion provides intercultural training and cultural events, addresses concerns related to sexual harassment, discrimination, and bias, and fosters spiritual formation and vocational understanding.

Professor of Religious Studies, is the Program Director of the Ethics & Social Change program and Race & Ethnicity Studies. Dr. Stein has been at the University of Evansville since 2002. She teaches a wide range of courses situated at the intersection of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion and social change. Dr. Stein earned her ThD in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament from Harvard University. Her research centers on the use, influence, and impact of religion on issues of gender, sexuality, colonialism, and race.| Stein's book, Anti-cultic Theology in Christian Biblical Interpretation: A Study of Isaiah 66:1-4 and Its Reception grounded the discussion of Christian anti-Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in the analysis of a particular passage. She shows that the widely held Christian interpretation of Isaiah 66:1-4 as an indictment against the Jerusalem temple and cult - and thereby God's rejection of Judaism - is motivated by a theology of substitution that sees the Church as the new Israel. Stein has also presented and published on how interpretations of biblical women reflect social attitudes and beliefs with respect to gender (see, for example, her articles “Know*Be*Do: Using the Bible to Teach Ethics to Children” and “Gender Components in Dramatic Retellings of Judith”). Her current research (see “Privileging God the Father: The Neoliberal Theology of the Evangelical Orphan Care Movement” in The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion, and surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism) uses postcolonial and feminist methods of biblical criticism to show how evangelical Christian theology interprets the Bible to align the adoptive parents with God and thus effectively to allow for the dismissal of ethical concerns associated with adoption and foster care. In the case of international adoption, this “Gospel-centered” adoption takes advantage of Western privilege to victimize women in developing nations as a form of Christian neocolonialism. She problematizes the role of transracial adoption in the Evangelical orphan care movement as a visual evangelism.

Robert Lopez (ethics and social change major), came to the University of Evansville by way of Bosse High School, where he competed twice in UE’s High School Changemaker Challenge (placing 3rd and 2nd). His idea – to create a city-block sized wetland education park in downtown Evansville that will filter water and increase economic development – has been the topic of his ChangeLab projects since his first semester as a Freshman at UE. He is the very embodiment of what a UE Changemaker is, and will likely see his idea created before he graduates.