New Honors Advisor, Joe Schuetz
Hello all! My name is Joe Schuetz and I am a new honors advisor here at the Lee Honors College. I look forward to meeting you all, and to helping you get to where you need to be with the Lee Honors College and beyond.
WMU has served as the backdrop for virtually all of my academic career. I received a B.A. with double majors in anthropology and comparative religion in 2010. During my senior year I got to spend 7 weeks working on the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project - an experience that taught me the importance of community engagement and collaboration in fieldwork. WMU also made it possible for me to finish my undergraduate degree with two young children at home (a period in my life that made me deeply appreciative of coffee).
I returned to WMU in 2016 and went on to receive an M.A. in spirituality, culture and health from the Department of Comparative Religion. I am currently working toward a Ph.D. in sociology with research interests centering on conceptualizing embodied spiritual experience in healthcare research inventories. I have taught courses at WMU in “Death, Dying and Beyond” and “Religions of the World,” and have served as a graduate teaching assistant for “Religion and Health,” “Principles of Sociology,” and “Nonwestern World.” I also co-authored the textbook Discovering Religions of the World, which is used in the “Religions of the World” course.
As a first-generation college student, WMU has given me the resources and opportunities to explore higher education and to figure out who I am and what I am intellectually passionate about. WMU has also given me many chances, and it is highly gratifying for me to give back in the form of service to you all at Lee Honors College.
Fun facts: an avid walker, I would be willing to wager that I hold the record for most steps walked around WMU’s campus over the course of the past 20 years. I am also a self-taught guitarist and have been playing for over 25 years.
If you ever have any questions about the Lee Honors College, WMU, or anything spirituality and health related, feel free to reach out!