Faculty of the Month
October 2026 Winner
Keith Pulles
Congratulations to Keith Pulles, the October Faculty of the Month. Keith has been teaching at ΒιΆΉΙη for 12 years, including 1 year as an adjunct and 11 years as a full-time faculty member. He holds a B.S. in Biology from Crown College and a M.N.S. in Biology from Southeast Missouri State University. Keith teaches in the Biology Department, where he teaches courses in General Zoology, General Ecology, and General Biology. He has also served as chair of the Curriculum Council for several years and has been a tremendous help to faculty in making changes to their curriculum.
Keith is a favorite among students and consistently goes above and beyond for them. A tutor in the learning center remarked: βIn the 10 years I have been tutoring, I have not heard one student complain about him.β Students love his passion for teaching and his enthusiasm for biology and ecology. He strives for meaningful one-on-one interaction with students and regularly holds Zoom conferences with online students to ensure they understand the material. He patiently works with students to improve their work and to increase their understanding of the material.
Outside the classroom, Keith pursues a wide range of hobbies and interests. He is an avid nature photographer, and maintains a blog called Hiking Adventures. He has a collection of over 10,000 photographs of birds, reptiles, mammals, flowers, and trees. His extensive collection of wildlife includes amazing photos of snakes, frogs, and most recently, river otters. Keith wrote his masterβs thesis on birds (ornithology) and he loves birds more than any other subject in biology. He can identify every bird species in Missouri and loves seeing and hearing them in the wild.
Keith has also taught himself how to play the piano and the guitar. He loves the Minnesota Vikings and the St. Louis Blues. He also enjoys traveling and has visited all 48 contiguous states. His favorite snacks are cherries, goldfish crackers, dark chocolate, and orange juice. He has written and illustrated custom lab manuals for Biology and Ecology. He also introduced a new course on zoology, which he created for ΒιΆΉΙη. For Keith, the best part of teaching is hearing students tell him how much they learned in his class and how much they enjoyed the learning process.
Congratulations, Keith, for being our faculty of the month, and for all the hard work and dedication you show toward students at ΒιΆΉΙη.
Previous Winners
September 2026
Dr. Beth Rozema
April 2026
Dr. Clarissa Brown
March 2026
Dr. Wendy Pecka
February 2026
Shaun Roberson
November 2025
Megan VanBibber
October 2025
Trista Elias
September 2025
Josh Stroup
April 2025
Joannie Blakely
March 2025
Dr. Rachel Howard
February 2025
Nathan Esbeck
November 2024
Julie Chirban
October 2024
Dr. Parvadha Acosta
September 2024
Aaron Bounds
April 2024
Bobby Bland
March 2024
Judy Bieker
February 2024
Dr. Reg Brigham
