well established and here for your Student
Our team
Liberal Arts Experts
Meet Our Faculty
During their time at Studium, a student interacts with the faculty of the school personally and on a daily basis. The faculty of Studium School function In Loco Parentis, in the place of the students’ parents, exercising their role as teacher while intentionally caring for and cultivating meaningful relationships with their students.
Learning as a way of life
Leadership
Nathaniel Lutke
History Courses Taught: Bible, Greek, Roman, Medieval and Modern European History
Supplemental Courses Taught: Capstone Italy, Economic Thought, Great Books, Latin, and How To Read A Book
Mr. Lutke grew up in rural upstate New York in an early homeschooling family full of pastors. After moving to Kansas in 2000 he finished his B.A. in History at University of Kansas in 2003, with a minor in Geography. Returning to Wichita he attended graduate school at Wichita State University and completed his M.A. in History.
Mr. Lutke began his teaching career at Butler Community College from 2006-2015. He joined the faculty of Northfield School of the Liberal Arts in 2007 and donned many hats and assumed many roles over the years. He joined the Friends University History & Politics Department as adjunct faculty in 2014 and continues to teach courses when he can. Forever a learner he has branched out in many directions in his studies into other areas of history, economics, government, and even Latin.
Continuing the heritage of Northfield School, Mr. Lutke launched the Studium at Northfield School in 2021 and has had the privilege of leading an amazing group of teachers in our educational journeys together.
Mr. Lutke married his wonderful wife, Carrie, in 2008, and they have four amazing children: Zoë, Eric, Clare and Conrad. As a family they attend New Life Covenant Church.
Dan Overholt
Courses Taught: Foundations of Science, Bio, Chem & Physics, Literature & Composition
Mr. Overholt received his Associate’s Degree from Friends University, where he studied Cello Performance, having transferred from North Park University in Chicago, where he studied composition and physics. However, he accounts his graduation from the International Baccalaureate program from Wichita’s East High School as a high-water mark in his academic journey and the beginning of a lifelong dedication toward education, creativity, and service.
Since then he has pursued many endeavors professionally, and has worked (in no particular order) as a photographer, luthier, repair-man, graphic designer, sound recordist, film chemist, real estate developer, cinematographer, cellist, bassist, English teacher, church custodian, martial arts instructor, audio engineer, non-profit administrator, strategic director, and house painter.
Throughout these varied careers he has maintained his love for the performing arts, and has been a member of many local bands (notably The Travel Guide, Commonfolk, and The Radio Soul), and he currently performs with the local gospel/hip-hop outfit David B. Ladwig and the Up ’n’ Ups, as well as recording and performing his own music. He is currently beginning his sixth year as the director of the Church of the Savior Chamber Choir. He has also had the honor of working with fellow Northfield faculty Bill and Sanda Coleman on a number of recent plays, including Death of a Salesman, Much Ado About Nothing, and Hamlet.
Joshua Sturgill
Courses Taught: Literature & Composition, Poetry, Astronomy, History
Mr. Sturgill is a lover of travel, books, art and education. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, he has lived in Kansas, Colorado and California and is currently on loan to Wichita from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
A 2001 graduate of Sangre de Cristo Seminary, Mr. Sturgill returned to formal education in 2013 completing a BA in Western classics and an MA in Far Eastern Classics at Saint John’s College, Santa Fe.
The St. John’s style of Shared Inquiry classrooms has deeply influenced his teaching methods. Shared Inquiry emphasizes communal learning and an integrative, rather than specialist, approach to knowledge.
Mr. Sturgill is the author of two books of poetry As Far As I Can Tell (2018) and Now a Major Motion Picture (2021), as well as numerous short stories, articles and essays. His writing has appeared in The College, Cresset, Synaxis Journal, the online blog of Darkly Bright Press, and has been rejected by many other fine publications.
In July of 2020, at an inopportune moment near the height of a global pandemic, Mr. Sturgill married his dear friend Rebekah so they could quarantine together more conveniently. With any spare time, Mr. Sturgill plays Irish Drum, reads Perennial Philosophy or works in his garden. He is a tenor in the choirs of St. George Cathedral, Wichita, and Holy Trinity Orthodox Church, Santa Fe.
Rebekah Sturgill
Courses Taught: Literature & Composition
Mrs. Sturgill is delighted to be returning to secondary school after a brief sojourn in elementary education last year. She is a lover of books and occasionally gets around to reading them too. She grew up in Fort Worth, Texas but please don’t hold that against her as she quickly moved to Santa Fe to attend St. John’s College for a BA in Liberal Arts. She has since returned to St. John’s (via Zoom) to receive her MA in Eastern Classics from the comfort of her living room in Wichita.
While not teaching or talking adamantly about education, you can find Mrs. Sturgill singing alto in the choir at St. George Orthodox Cathedral, hosting a fabulous dinner party, behind the counter at Eighth Day Books, or listening to her husband read a very good story while she knits. Such a pastoral lifestyle was brought to fruition by getting married during a worldwide pandemic, something Mrs. Sturgill does not recommend highly to anyone considering the possibility.
In the past, Mrs. Sturgill focused her teaching on math and science but is excited to return to her roots in literature and the Great Books! She particularly loves the works of Virginia Woolf, Flannery O’Connor, C.S. Lewis, any Russian, and anyone born before Descartes (whom she does not particularly love). The book she would bring to a desert island would either be War & Peace (much to her husband’s chagrin) or The Brothers Karamazov (to find out why her husband likes it so much more than War & Peace).
Carrie Lutke
Courses Taught: Literature and Composition
Mrs. Lutke received her BA in ESOL Education from John Brown University in 2001 and spent the first years of her career teaching at language learning centers, Pleasant Valley Middle School and St. Jude’s Catholic School.
She and her husband, Nathaniel, are the parents of four children, and she has spent much of her past few years homeschooling them. Alongside this she started her own lettering and calligraphy business, Sparrow Lettering, in 2016. Her work can be found in some local shops or summer pop-up markets, but the teacher in her loves to getting to teach calligraphy and lettering workshops.
Mrs Lutke loves to read and to travel and has been to several corners of the globe, including China, Canada, the Czech Republic, Italy and France.
Sarah Eastley
Courses Taught: Geography, Geology, Climatology
Mrs. Eastley’s love of geography began as a child, when the Rand McNally road atlas was her sole source of entertainment on long car drives. This eventually led to a Bachelor’s degree in geography from Brigham Young University, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2000. Shortly after that, she left her career pursuits to devote herself to raising a family.
She and her husband, Jared, are the parents of eight children, and she has devoted much time to homeschooling them. Teaching runs in her blood, and in addition to homeschool teaching she has worked as a substitute teacher, a teacher’s assistant, and a grader for a high school English teacher. She has extensive experience working with youth through volunteer positions in her church and with the Boy Scouts of America.
Mrs. Eastley loves to travel and has been to Europe several times and Africa once, as well as traveling all over the United States. She particularly loves the mountains and red rock country of Utah, where she has deep roots. She also enjoys photography, writing, hiking, gardening, and genealogy research.
Shawna Hein
Courses Taught: Algebra, Literature and Composition, History, Great Books
Mrs. Hein is a Kansas native. She grew up in the small town of Silver Lake, Ks and attended college at Kansas State University where she received her BA in Elementary Education.
She started her journey in education teaching Kindergarten and First Grade for a short stint before deciding to stay home with her children. She then jumped into homeschooling, enjoying teaching new grades every year and relearning subjects which sparked a new joy in education, a passion for learning and a penchant for experimenting to find new methods of teaching that worked for her specific family.
Mrs. Hein soon went back to school, completing the Reading Interventionalist Program at Fundamental Learning Center. Tutoring provided more opportunities to enjoy and spread her love of learning beyond homeschool and she was delighted to be back in her element. Mrs. Hein has tutored for 7 years and continues to work with a few students.
When her daughter wanted to go back to school, Mrs. Hein found Northfield Studium and it was a great fit. Inspired by the atmosphere and pedagogy of the school, when Mr. Lutke asked if she’d be interested in teaching there, she was excited to take on a new challenge. Mrs. Hein has found a new passion in learning through the great books and joining the great conversation with a group of amazing students and faculty.
When not devouring ancient literature, Mrs. Hein loves to read lighter subjects, take long walks, camp with her family, and refinish furniture.
David Cullen
Courses Taught: Logic, Philosophy, Geometry
An ordained minister and a published writer, Dr. Cullen notes that he attended eight elementary schools in five US states and two foreign countries, but settled down after sixth grade, attending just one junior and two senior high schools. Intending to become an architect, he studied at the University of Colorado’s College of Environmental Design from 1969-71.
After a six-year break during which he remodeled houses, drove 18-wheelers cross-country, and rebuilt printing presses, he returned to school and earned a BA at Anaheim Christian College, followed by an MA in Christian Apologetics from Simon Greenleaf School of Law, where he later taught Logic and Critical Thinking and was Dean of Students.
In 1983, he and his wife Nancy moved to Strasbourg, France, where he began his seminar-year of studies in the doctoral program at the Faculté de théologie protestante de l’Université des Sciences Humaines de Strasbourg. In 1987, he successfully defended his dissertation, C. S. Lewis, Apologiste de la foi chrétienne: sa lutte contre les effets sécularisant du matérialisme et du naturalisme, just the second dissertation defended at a French university on the work of English author C.S. Lewis and the first focused on Lewis’ philosophical defense of the Christian faith.
Dr. Cullen has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in logic, business ethics, world literature, and philosophy. His courses at private secondary schools have included logic, geometry, composition, and ancient history. He is married to Nancy Hancock-Cullen, a private pilot and retired air traffic controller.
Megan Gilstrap
Courses Taught: Music
Sarah Wagner
Courses Taught: Biology, genetics, ecology, oceanography, human anatomy, and astronomy
Sarah Wagner’s love affair with marine biology began as a child with books of stories about dolphins, and CD’s of humpback whale songs. Despite parental concern over the lack of job opportunities in this field, she never did learn to be interested in medicine or chemistry. She learned to scuba dive as a high school student living in Florida, and then took as many classes in biology and oceanography as she could find.
She received her bachelor’s degree in Biology (with a marine concentration) from Gordon College, in Wenham, MA, where she graduated magma cum laude, and with a semester of independent research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. After an incredible 4 months interning with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society she moved home again and began preparing to marry her college sweet heart, Jeremy Wagner. They married in the summer of 2010 and moved back to his home state of New Hampshire. They lived in NH for eight years and both taught at Laconia Christian Academy. Sarah taught general biology and human anatomy, and helped design their yearbook.
Mrs. Wagner and her husband and children moved to Wichita (despite the total lack of extant oceans) in 2018 to be part of the growing classical education movement in this area. She was a happy stay at home mom for their 5 kids until two summers ago when the Sturgill’s convinced her to talk to Mr. Lutke about the possibility of returning to teaching again at Studium.
When not teaching or chasing her children, Mrs. Wagner enjoys reading, hiking, photography, singing in the choir at St. Mary’s Orthodox Church, and listening to Celtic and choral music.
Luke Gilstrap
Courses Taught: Poetry, Literature and Composition
Rachel Mohrmann
Courses Taught: Composition
Mrs. Mohrmann received her B.S.Ed. in English and Secondary Education from Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. It was by candlelight as she overlooked the Great Rift Valley in Africa that the metaphysical poets first touched her soul with the power of great literature during her initial teaching assignment in Kijabe, Kenya. From there, she carried that love to her students in Miami, Florida. In Florida, she also met and married her co-tennis coach, Ryan. Together they moved to Winter Park, Colorado to lead a retreat center and Bible School where she continued to teach writing to small homeschool classes. During this time, C.S. Lewis wooed her into the land of Narnia, “baptized” her imagination, and led her on a more extensive journey into the Great Books.
Eventually she began homeschooling their own four children. Mrs. Mohrmann’s greatest joy as a teacher has been witnessing the love of Beauty, Goodness, and Truth in the hearts of her students. The great stories and authors of Western Civilization have become companions, guides, and friends, awakening and spurring on this love.
In 2020, the Mohrmann family moved to Wichita, KS. Here she has been training and working with struggling students in the field of educational therapy. No matter what their
cognitive challenges may be, Mrs. Mohrmann desires that everyone will have access into the world of stories, because she agrees with the author, Stratford Caldecott, who
says that “stories will save the world.”
Warren Snyder
Courses Taught: Latin 1, Latin 2
David Jochems
Courses Taught: Pre-Algebra, Algebra 1, Algebra 2
