John J. Ivers

John J. Ivers, a native of Philadelphia, grew up in the east. Getting his education did not come easily as he worked full time during eight of the ten years he was in college. He holds BA and MA degrees in Spanish from Brigham Young University and an Ed.D in Curriculum and Teaching from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His undergraduate degree also includes a minor in Anthropology. During his career, John has taught a variety of subjects. These include Spanish in the elementary school, middle school, and college levels (grammar, literature, phonetics, and pedagogy); Introduction to Teacher Education, Educational Foundations, Philosophy of Education, College Survival, Seminar in Behavior and Society (Honors), Philosophies of the Western World since the Renaissance (Honors), and World Foundations (World Civ.). He has been involved in several additional activities at Ricks College/BYU-Idaho. For example, from 1990 to 1995 he directed a special course to help college instructors improve their teaching skills. Over a third of the full-time professors at the college went through the program. From 1993 to 2002 he was the co-director of a program where college students instruct middle school students in several foreign languages. From 1999 to 2001, John served as the director of the Ricks College/BYU-Idaho Summer Honors Institute. He was the Associate Dean of the College of Language and Letters from 2005-2006. He served as the Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature from 2006-2008.  He enjoys giving academic conference presentations and publishing scholarly articles (despite the many rejections).

John came to Ricks College/BYU-Idaho in 1989. In 1996 he received a faculty award for his teaching. In 2003, he was the recipient of the BYU-Idaho Distinguished Faculty Award. John and his wife, Connie, have three children and three grandchildren. He currently serves as the Dean of the College of Language and Letters.