User:NovakFreek

My name is Michael Anthony Novak. I am an early but now only occasional and interested contributor to Wikipedia. I think that the editors of Wikipedia should use their real names and that these should be public, as a way of tempering the abuses and attempted manipulations of knowledge that anonymity could allow.

I was raised in Oregon, Illinois in the United States, a small town unusually rich in art, local history, and lovely area landscapes. Professionally, I work as an historian and theologian. I did an undergraduate degree in ancient and intellectual history at Northern Illinois University, a Master's in theological studies at the University of Notre Dame with an emphasis in historical theology, and a doctorate in systematic theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the United States, where I was a Lecturer and Teaching Fellow in Theology. I was Visiting Assistant Professor of Catholic Theology at Loyola University New Orleans, and then an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy, Theology, and Religion at Saint Leo University outside Tampa, where I was unanimously elected to tenure in 2019. I also served as Interim Director of the Center for Catholic-Jewish Studies at Saint Leo University, 2014-15. I moved for marriage after the pandemic and am now teaching in a private high school.