Dr. Joseph Ostenson is a professor of psychology in the College of Education, Health and Behavioral Services, but his work goes beyond the classroom at UT Martin.
He is the interim director of the Center for Global Engagement and Experience, which oversees Travel Study and Study Abroad programs on campus.
“Presently, we are also responsible for International Student Services,” he said. “I just started last February, though I’ve worked a lot with Study Abroad over the past several years.”
Ostenson has been at UT Martin since 2012 after teaching at Brigham Young University, where he received his Ph.D.
“I enjoy interacting with the students,” he said. “I think it’s in my blood. My father was a teacher, and his mother was a teacher. She was actually a high school principal.”
Ostenson said he enjoys working with students traveling abroad for studies.
“There’s a little bit of joy I get in sending students abroad or even on domestic travel studies,” he said. “I get to be involved in the change that happens in students without having to give them grades.”
Ostenson has traveled a number of times with UT Martin students to Italy.
“I lived in Italy for two years when I was young, before I started college,” he said. “When I came to UT Martin, I thought that it would be fun to share with students some of the experiences that I had there. So, after about five years, I put together a short-term Travel Study program to Italy. We had two partners: one in Rome and one in Tuscany.
“The one in Tuscany landed us in Siena, and the students just loved it there. I had never been there before. Our partner there invited us to come back for a full semester. So, I put together a semester-long program, took my family over there with 20 undergraduate students and spent the whole semester there. Toward the end of the semester, (UTM Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs) Dr. (Philip Acree) Cavalier came and saw what we had done and said, ‘We should do this for the whole university.’”
Ostenson served as the chair of the Department of Psychology for five years, with that tenure ending July 1.
Along with his academic duties, Ostenson serves as the bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fulton, Kentucky – a rotational position that serves as the congregation’s pastor.
“I rotate off fairly soon,” he said of that experience. “It is a church where you get a lot of leadership opportunities if you want them.”
