Meet The Prof, with Shane & Spence

MTP 24: Doug Matthews, Part 1, On Faith, Fumbles, and Finding your Purpose

• Shane Hartley • Episode 24

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Doug is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire. He discusses how to understand and embrace who God made you to be, how he discovered his passion for psychology and neuroscience, how the Christian faith intersects with psychology, the divine design in human behavior, how he candidly shares his past struggles with alcohol with his students, and how almost every profession can reflect God's glory.

You can email Doug at: matthedb@uwec.edu

Read more about Doug at: https://meettheprof.com/view/professors/entry/doug-matthews/

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This is a question I've been thinking about. So yes, you as also Christian professors, how do y 'all incorporate your faith and just your beliefs into sometimes the curriculum that may necessarily not be all, they just have Christian beliefs, it might be secular. So how do you do that? I appreciate you answering this question. Hope you have a good day.

Hey, and welcome back to Meet the Prof. Hey, I'm Shane Hartley, and if you have not been here before, Spence and I do this podcast because we want to encourage Christ -centered conversations on the college campus, especially between professors and students. So we have been interviewing Christian professors by using questions from college students, like you just heard from Jax. And I am really excited about today's interview because this got so deep

and there was so much rich stuff in it. actually divided this into two podcasts. So you're going to hear the first part today of our interview with Doug Matthews. Doug is a professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire. And before we get into deep stuff, we do talk about like his love for North Carolina with us and some North Carolina sports and an embarrassing moment he had as a college student. He was actually kicked out of a psychology class as a college student. Now he's a professor of psychology and some of the

that then we jump into in this episode that are so helpful are how he integrates his faith. This is an answer to Jack's question really by showing the behavior of humans seen not only from science, but by through a lens of human design and really emphasizing how uniquely we are all made. And he also talked some about his research on alcohol and addiction. And he's pretty honest with his college students.

about his own relationship with alcohol and abuse of alcohol when he was a college student. And I think it really does help him relate to the students. The students feel like he can understand them more. And he also emphasizes a lot. And then maybe if there was one theme to this interview, it was on the importance of recognizing how God's designed us individually. learning how God has made me and encourages students to don't

up trying to learn this, how uniquely they're made so that they can make a unique contribution in the world. And it's very practical. It's so helpful. I think you'll love his passion and we really enjoyed it. So before we get started, if you would remember to take a second, maybe you can pause this unless you're driving and subscribe or like, or follow the podcast or whatever app you're listening with. It doesn't cost anything.

And it also doesn't cost anything to click download. Apparently that really helps too. And I think your app should be set up to where it will only download when you're on wifi and doesn't take a lot of memory up on your device. So all that stuff, thanks for humor and me. We're trying to find ways of helping get this out to more college students. And you may be a college student listening or you may be a professor or a faculty member.

or a parent or a grandparent who loves college students. so wherever you are, we are so glad you're with us. Thank you for listening and thanks for your encouragement. And we are releasing this on Tuesday. We're going to try releasing these on Tuesdays for a while because of your helpful input on Facebook. And so keep it coming. Let me know things you think we could do better. And without any further ado, here we go. It's our interview with Doug

Doug, we are so excited to get this time with you. It's fun to see you like this because the first time I met you was at a conference you were speaking at that was around Raleigh. It was in Raleigh for Christian Faculty of Staff. Now we have this technology to do this. I just learned from your meettheprof .com profile that part of your graduate study was in Chapel Hill. It was. you're up in Wisconsin, but we're Carolina people.

I'll tell you it's a, yeah. Carolina is just a magical place. My, in fact, my brother and my mom still live in Raleigh and sometimes I get down there and every time I'm back, it's just like, this is just a wonderful place to be. Well, Raleigh was a pretty magical place during the tournament this season. Holy cow. about the Cinderella season to end all Cinderella seasons? Yeah. give context, have to explain. yeah. NC state. And I mean, they went from like nothing

I mean, had a shot at winning the tournament this year in It's pretty incredible. actually picked them in my bracket to make it in. no, you didn't. I had to the Elite Eight, so I was like, yes! Okay. All right. My son's a rising junior at State, so he had like the best year ever. It's good for him to have one those experiences. Yeah, that's great. That's fantastic. So one of the questions we always like to lead with, and I bet you have a bunch of these, so you're going to have to file through

I've known you for 10 minutes. I'm making assumptions already, but what was your most embarrassing moment while you were at college? man. Yeah. I mean, there are so many to, to pick through. Okay. So see, called it. I can read people. Yeah. Right. So like all through elementary school, middle school, high school, I was just that whole, that whole, you know, I think this is all my, my meat in the prof, know, setting your chair, keep your hands to yourself. Don't talk to

I never got that. That was not me and I couldn't do that. So I was in a developmental psychology class. I still remember the faculty meeting and we're sitting there and it's one of these classes of about 40 students and I'm talking here and I'm talking over there and it was just, you know, not paying attention at all to the prof. And he literally stops the class and he points to me and he says, leave, you've got to go now.

And I mean, gets kicked out of a college class? You know, so I had to stand, I looked around and I was like, is he talking to me? I had to stand up, you know, walk out of the classroom and it was, it was awful. I, it's the academic walk of shame. Did you have any warning? Did he warn you? No, he did not, you know, but I guess I was just so not paying a bit of attention and disrupting everything that he just kicked me out of a college class. I'm going to like

I like you already. We're going to be friends. This is an awful interview. Get out of here. I'm pretty sure I got kicked out of a college class or two, And you know what? And I bet that professor never would have thought you would one day be a college professor. no. he have picked up? Yeah. My senior superlative in high school was most likely to fail out of college. You know, but I'll tell you when I, when I was in school, it was just like

Once I got to university, it was like this magical moment of just, of just studying stuff I loved and I cared about. And it was like, this is great. So yeah, you know, it's, really where I found the big chunk of my identity. Hmm. So was that the turnaround for you then just, got to a point in college where you actually love the subject matter and then you would be. Yeah, that was the first big step forward in my life was, I found something

we were setting around asking what I thought were interesting questions and trying to figure answers out. And this whole idea that we could set around and do that was really, really important to me. And then I was able to find content area, know, kind of neurophysiological psychology, this behavioral neuroscience area that just resonated with my desire to be a scientist and my desire to kind of think.

And it was just, it was really probably the first big step I took in terms of, in terms of growing into really who God made me to be. So that's interesting. Well, I've already got this burning question about how your faith interfaces with that idea of like behavioral psychology and how you're made and kind of what motivates people versus what the Bible says or what faith might say

Like how was that matched when you're in this field? Yeah. You know, so as a psychologist, often, it's one of those things that mostly makes everybody uncomfortable to be candid with you. Okay. That's your question. That makes me uncomfortable. Everybody comes into the classroom. They come into their classrooms, whether they're faculty or students, and they have this internal sense of who I am, how that plays itself out, but why am I the way I

So everybody tries to come up with reasons of, know, it's your genetics, it's your environment, it's the interplay of those two, so it's your epigenetics. It's how you're interacting in social groups or whatever, you know, this laundry list of theory that works inside of there. And yet, a huge part of that is it's who God made you to be, okay? And, you know, we all have our intrinsic personalities that we bring to the table.

I have two grandkids, one's two, one's about five months old. They've got personalities already, right? And it's that nature of who God formed you to be and how that plays itself out. as a Christian psychologist, when I lecture and I talk about stuff, part of what I talk about, I try to use the word design. This is who you're designed to be. This is how you are designed.

just kind of seed my thoughts, seed my lectures with the idea of it's more than just your environment. It's more than just the genetic changes that you've gone through. It's more than just this or that. And we have to wrestle with that if we're really ever going to figure out who we are and why people react the way they react, why people believe the way they believe, kind of But, the part the faith brings to you is there is this core.

that you're designed to made a certain way. And then that gets modified over your life, all these other things. That's right. And that's the thing that's unique about the Christian perspective in your field, you think. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think as it just relates to how my faith interweaves with all of that kind of stuff is, you know, when I have great days or when a student has a great day or I'm lecturing on something that I'm really, really excited about.

I want to remember this is something that's capturing the way in which God designed people to be. And when I have days or when my class has days or we're talking about stuff that isn't as easy and as fun and as touchy -feely, we talk about or I think about the fact of, you know, this is one of the consequences of sin and how sin has played itself out. You know, so when we think

you know, the idea of being excited and the idea of being driven and all that kind of stuff, it's not necessarily bad, but when it tips itself over to aggression and the ego and manipulation and that kind of stuff, you know, that's that's that interplay that's worked inside of it. And I find personally that helps me grind, ground myself, you know, to really think about the fact of, you know, I just have to be who I am.

And I don't have to be somebody else. I don't have to be either one of you I've just got to be who I am because that's who God designed me to be and and just grow inside of that and that's really that took me a long time to learn that and and just kind of Really go back to what I just said ground myself inside of that belief and in the fact that I God's God's maturing me and transforming me as we work our way through life Tell us more about your research

that has to do with alcohol and how this research may relate with your teaching with your students, even relating with their drinking habits. Yeah, so I study alcohol use. I study alcohol use and misuse. I use mostly animal models to do it, try and study how the drug alters behavior and what are the underlying neurobiological changes that result in it.

I do that in a few different ways here at UW -Eau Claire, so a lot of undergraduates work in the laboratory with me. And that's really great because it gives me an opportunity to talk to the students about science, and it gives me an opportunity to talk to them about what we're doing and how that plays itself out. When I'm in class, and I lecture on this, I teach a class on psychology of addictions. And we cover both chemical and behavioral addictions. And we talk about

brain reward pathways and how all of that works. But in a lot of ways, what I also talk to the students about is when I was an undergraduate, I wasn't a believer, you and I lived a lifestyle that was really pretty bad to be just absolutely candid with you. You know, so, you know, I talk about what is this like? What is this? How does this event play itself out? And I have personal experiences that I try to be candid with the students and talk about that in class, probably where

plays itself out even more is I'll have a student that'll come into my office. And I had this one student, he was a second, third year student here at the university and he was helping me with a class and he had missed a couple of classes, which was a little unlike. And so we met up and I was like, okay, what's going on? the truth was he just went on a crazy kind of undergraduate bender.

And we talked, know, he was trying to sell that off as, you know, the typical undergraduate life. And I said, look, you know, I've been there. I know how you felt the next day. I know why that happened. I know, you know, the regret and the shame that you're feeling right now. Let's talk about that kind of stuff. You know, and we end up having this conversation about that. We end up having this conversation wrapped up inside of the fact that this does not define you. This is not who you are. But if you don't go through this,

you're going to have issues that are associated with that. it's one of those things that, I look back on those days when I was an undergrad, I'm not proud of them by any means. But I think the Lord works on redeeming that kind of stuff. Christ saved me from that. And I think just being able to say, look, I was there and now I'm not there anymore, is something that students stop for a minute and they're like, OK, this is someone who's not judging

B understands what I'm feeling but not saying and C is willing to talk about it. So it plays itself out both inside the classroom and I think it plays itself out when I'm talking to students in my office. They know you can relate with them. Yeah, yeah. Like I say, it's not something I'm happy to be able to relate to. I look back on those days and I think, ugh. But it's there. And when they say something, I understand what they're saying. More importantly,

what they don't say, I understand what they're not saying, you know, and, we can just have honest conversations about that. Yeah. It says a lot about your relationship with a student that he would be open with you too. How about something like this? He was a great kid. I'm sure he still is. He's graduated and is on with his life, you know, but it's, it's

You know, it really goes back to the fact that I think it's real important that, and I'll say this probably a couple of times inside of this, you know, that we be the person that God wants us to be. You know, so when I talk to, you know, I've been a university faculty member for 20, 25 years now. So when I talk to a new faculty member, one of the things I say to them is, you've got to learn how to lecture in a way that reflects you.

You can't lecture like somebody else, because you're not somebody else, you're you. You've got to figure out who you are, right? You know, so my lecture style is very laid back. It's very interactive. And some students, know, they're not comfortable with that. They like more of the formal setting. But a lot of students really kind of groove with that. And what I've found over the years is that leads to an opportunity for really, really good conversations.

because they will say a variety of stuff. 18 to 25 year olds are fun people because you're not quite sure what's coming out of their mouth. And you can really get some really good conversations about that. So that question about, I believe resonates with me, be the person God wants you to be. And you kind of alluded to my next question is, how do you figure out who that person is? And so many students are going to do

identity definition stage. Yeah. And I'm, I'm in that. I'm in 48. I'm still trying to figure out who I am. So I'm not about it. You know, one of my favorite Bible verses that I really tried to embrace about 20 years ago is John six, 27 do not work for the food which perishes, but for that, which endures to eternal life, which, which, the son of God will give you because the father's place to seal on him. I paraphrase that in,

But what I love about that is, you know, the beginning is a big challenge. Don't just work for things you want, right? Work for things that are going to endure to eternal life, which the Son of Man has given you. you know, Jesus is going to give me things that resonate with me. He's going to give me opportunities that I'm like, yeah, this is natural. He's going to give me people to talk to that I resonate with. I don't have to be somebody else. I got to be me. You know, so often in life, our students

You know, they've left high school, they've come to university, they're trying to be who their parents told them they should be, who their teacher told them they should be, who their peer group, who maybe they've told them who they've been. And they have to go through that really hard thing of, who am I? Because who you are is who God made you to be. And you gotta learn to grow inside of that. And once you learn to embrace who you are,

the good, the bad, Christ is changing me, the Spirit's working in my life to modify all that. You know, I think that's really when you begin to just burn with a passion for God because you get to be you. So when I talk to students, and one of the things I tell them is, do a rigorous assessment of your life. Really, really rigorous. What do you like? What do you not like? Where are you growing at? And write all that down, journal all that

you're probably gonna have to work on it for a few months if not a few years because it's hard to get to know who you are and You know, so so I think that is just For for people who want to be really really active and they want to they want to really live for the Lord That's one of the things I say to him is figure out who you are Because once you figure out who you are, you're figure out the areas you're supposed to be working inside of you know My wife is one of the most nicest

She loves people. She loves to have people over. She loves to take care of people. That's what she's great at. I'm awful with all that kind of stuff. So be who you are and you'll have an impact. The whole time you're talking, I'm thinking of that scene in Chariots of Fire with Eric Liddell. Everybody's seen that, right? He says something in the effect of, feel God's pleasure when I run. If he looks at his sister and the sister's like, you should be a missionary. You should be a

This is God made you." And he goes, but God also made me fast. And I'm like, always feel like I'm spending my life looking for the thing where I go, God also made me like this. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right on that. Doug, one of the common questions we'll ask professors is how you would help a Christian student who is struggling with feeling

they want to make a difference when they graduate, but they feel like the way team A on God's team is to be a missionary or a pastor, if they do any other career, secular world, that would be team B. How would you speak against that? Yeah, boy, that's a huge thing. And okay, so let me be candid here. I struggled with that too. You know, so there was a season in my life where I really felt like the Lord

was calling us, my wife and I and my family, to something different. Well, for me, that meant missions. It had to be missions. And we started walking down that pathway. I can remember the conversation. Well, I'll back up one more step. The first thing I can remember is

just taken to the Lord daily, what do want me to do? Tell me what you want me to do, I'll do that. And I can remember looking out the window in our bedroom and just like, hopefully one of my bushes in my backyard's on fire, right? You know, because I wanted that, I was ready for that and that never happened. And so I decided and I remember the conversation with Melissa, it's just like, okay, we're gonna quit our job, we're gonna join a mission agency, we're gonna find a right mission agent, join a mission agency, yeah.

you that tells you a little bit about my personality you know impulsive action driven you know progress that kind of risk taker yeah okay well that too doesn't sound quite as good I think so Melissa's incredibly wise and she looked at me and she said Doug God does not waste anything and he has placed you in a situation where you have a degree

that opens numerous doors that very few people have. He's not gonna waste that. And I was like, you know, that's actually pretty wise. I wish I had thought of that. So we worked our way through that. And what was really interesting was the Lord put those two together and we went overseas for six years with a mission agency. But my mission was, I was a faculty member at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. I was working with a people group in India.

I taught classes, I gave exams, I wrote manuscripts and submitted them to journals. I used my job. And, you know, I never left my vocation as a faculty member to become a full -time Christian worker. And instead, God used what He had equipped me to do and what my family was equipped to do to do the work of God in a country that would have

India would have been harder to get into as a missionary. Obviously you could, and you know and continue to do that and and then six years later that door closed and we came back to the US as faculty members. You know so so that's really you know kind of where we go back to really what's kind of turning into the theme of this conversation is be who's God be who God has created you to be. He has not created me at least so far as I know to be a full -time Christian

He's created me to be a university faculty member. So be that. Don't, know, and essentially be a Christian who's a faculty member instead of a faculty member just happens to be a Christian. And I really think God spoke through Melissa that day and gave her that piece of wisdom, you know, so be you. You know, people who go off and they're elementary school teachers, middle school teachers, high school teachers, they're reaching kids that nobody else is going to reach.

People who go off to be business people, they're reaching people nobody else is gonna reach. People who go off to be social workers are reaching people nobody else is gonna reach, right? Missionaries aren't gonna reach them, pastors aren't gonna reach them because they're not coming to church. But you're in their life. You're at the front lines, you know, and I just think that's a place to be. So figure out who you are and be that person for God. Jordan Rayner has a podcast that I love. It's one of my favorite podcasts, New York Christians, and he talks to this.

and says that the work that we do in the world, it's not only valuable because it gets us close to other people who are lost and other opportunities for evangelism that a pastor might not have and a missionary might have. But actually, he makes a point that the work itself can bring God glory. yeah. So can you speak to that? Yeah, you know, I think...

You know, when I do my science, one of the things I think I'm doing is I'm exploring, I'm investigating, in some ways discovering stuff about the creation that God made. And I think God's glorified by that. So when I talk about the stuff the lab has done, or when I'm lecturing, and I'm just lecturing about stuff, what I think is, I'm describing God's glory

And I may be doing it in terms of neurons and DNA and RNA and behavior and that kind of stuff. But that's what God has created. that is, you one of the things when I talk to faculty members that I say is, you know, Christian faculty, God is giving you a very high calling because what you have the opportunity to do is describe to people what God has created, what God has

Or if you're in a creation kind of thing, let's say you're in art or you're in English or something like that and you're producing stuff. know, God has given you the ability to produce something and that production reflects who he is. It reflects his majesty and it reflects his personality. And, you know, I just think that's critical. You know, when we've all had that moment where we hear a song and it just so deeply resonates inside of our soul.

that we just feel our spirit has been swept up to the mountaintop, right? And that is someone who has created that situation. They've not created it, you know what I mean? But they've been able to produce something that has allowed you to be able to engage with the Lord in a way that I would not have if I had not had that, listened to that piece of music at that moment or something like that. So I think that's, I just find that a very, very high calling.

to do. It doesn't have to be faculty. I think it could be anything, right? I think if you're a business person and you're doing ethical business deals, you're showing the glory of God inside of that because everything else, you know, may be easier to cut that corner. You may get a better deal if you do this kind of side thing, right? But when you're ethical, when you're a lawyer and you're ethical or something like that, you're showing the glory of God. You're showing the fact that the Spirit has changed your life in such a way that you're a different person, right? 2 Corinthians 517.

I am so grateful for how Doug challenges us. He's challenging students and faculty members and myself included to really consider how God has geared us to make a unique contribution and how our work can glorify him. And I mentioned Jordan Rayner in the interview. And if you want to look up more about Jordan, I'll put a link to his website in the descriptions here.

And I think you'd love his podcast, Mayor Christians, you'll love his books. Master of One is one that I have just finished reading. so this was so rich of an interview with Doug. I so appreciate him. And before we go, if you'll remember to follow or like or subscribe to this, that will help. And until next time, we hope that God will continue to use this to encourage Christ -centered conversations on the college campus.