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Scott Moore has enjoyed more than four decades of experience as a musician and educator. His career includes over a thousand concerts with renowned American orchestras and jazz legends to collaborating with pop music icons and touring Broadway productions. He is the only bass trombonist to have studied in the Juilliard School's Professional Studies program.

Now that he has moved beyond the stage, Dr. Moore is a dedicated mentor at the College, where he challenges students to rethink their attitudes and perspectives. His core message to students is to cultivate resilience by embracing a positive outlook and understanding the powerful idea that we can become what we think about. He has served as a department chair and has taught a wide range of courses, from music theory and history to technology and academic research. Currently, his courses on pop music and seminars for first-year and advanced students focus on a powerful lesson: the joy of creation should always be celebrated over the stress of competition.

Lisa Ortmann, PhD is the Grace and Bertil Pehrson Endowed Professor and Associate Professor of Education at Gustavus. Dr. Ortmann’s education courses prepare future teachers across the grade levels and content areas to build a deep understanding of how children and adolescents learn to read and write, and the research-based methods of teaching literacy for all students. She was awarded the Innovation in Teaching Award from the Kendall Center for Engaged Learning for her “Literacy Histories” project, where education majors critically examine their own experiences of learning to read, write, and use language, identifying the ways their history shapes their teaching. She teaches a First Term Seminar course called “For the Love of Books!” where first-year students follow their curiosity as readers, reflecting on the value of literacy in their lives as citizens of a free and democratic society. Together, students build a reading community that sustains their values, shapes their identities, and expands their worldviews.

Dr. Ortmann’s scholarly work informs, and is informed by, her teaching and professional activities at the College and in the state. Her research areas include teachers’ uses of culturally responsive teaching practices and diverse literature, the instructional methods that support literacies of multilingual adolescent learners, and the impact of instructional coaching models to enhance teaching. Recent peer-reviewed publications include a co-authored study with a former Gustie student, “Developing Responsive Disciplinary Literacies for Student Teaching in Social Studies” in The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, and a state-wide study, "Surveying the Landscape: Minnesota's English Language Arts Teachers' Perspectives on Intellectual Freedom" in The Minnesota English Journal.

Dr. Ortmann’s professional service is in partnership with teachers and schools both locally and nationally. She is an engaged collaborator with Saint Peter and Mankato educators to design and facilitate real-world teaching opportunities for Gustie education majors at all stages of the four-year program. She serves the state of Minnesota as the Intellectual Freedom Chair for the board of the Minnesota Council of Teachers of English where she provides professional development to English Language Arts teachers across the state. She was selected to serve as a This Story Matters Teacher Corp Member on the National Council of Teachers of English to develop book rationales for teaching diverse literature. She consults and provides guidance on statewide reading initiatives for the Minnesota Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, and for the English Language Arts 2020 Standards development project with the Minnesota Department of Education.

In her moments of free time, you can find Dr. Ortmann outdoors at the lake or in her garden, reading a novel, running with her yellow lab Harley, or cheering loudly at her daughter’s performances and games. She is a passionate educator, who has found a home at Gustavus due to the life-long relationships that are built on campus. Mentoring new teachers into the profession is one of the greatest gifts of her career, especially when they return to campus with their own students.

Dr. Shu-Ling Wang is an associate professor of Economics. She joined Gustavus in 2016 after a two-year appointment at The College of Wooster. Her teaching interests include Intermediate Macroeconomics, Money and Banking, International Finance, Public Finance, and Principles of Economics. As an active instructor in an interactive and interdisciplinary liberal arts environment, she enjoys developing and experimenting with innovative pedagogies to enrich students’ learning experiences. She also values mentoring undergraduate research that fosters critical and independent thinking. At Wooster, she advised several year-long senior independent studies, and at Gustavus, she offers writing-in-the-discipline courses in economics and mentors class-based research projects. In October 2023, her Money and Banking students’ paper titled “The Asian Crisis of 1997” won third place in the Economic Communication category of the Minnesota Economic Association (MEA) Undergraduate Paper Contest. In 2025, Dr. Wang served as a faculty panelist at the MAYDAY! Peace Conference at Gustavus, participating in the teach-in model addressing issues of peace, human rights, and social justice. More recently, she served on the Nobel Conference '63 Planning Committee (theme: AI and Human Agency).

Dr. Wang’s research focuses on Macroeconomics, Monetary Economics, and International Finance. She studies fiscal and monetary policy issues—such as fiscal stimulus, public debt, tax policy, income distributional effects, and monetary policy, using dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with representative or heterogeneous agents. Her papers have been published in the Journal of Macroeconomics, Review of International Economics, and Economic Modelling. She received the Mansergh Faculty Scientific Research Award at Gustavus in both 2022 and 2025. Her recent project examines the debt-financed stimulus effects in a high-debt economy without monetary independence, considering different schemes and speeds of debt adjustment in a two-sector New Keynesian model. Future projects will examine the redistribution effects between savers and hand-to-mouth agents of debt-financing policies. She regularly presents her work at the The Midwest Economics Association, Canadian Economics Association, Western Economics Association, and Liberal Arts Macroeconomics conferences.

In addition to her research, Dr. Wang actively contributes to professional service. She serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Macroeconomics, Economic Modelling, Contemporary Economic Policy, Cambridge University Press, and the Bulletin of Economic Research. She has also served on the steering and program committees for the Liberal Arts Macroeconomics Conference and was a member of the Board of the Minnesota Economic Association. In 2025 she served as a mentor and a panelist for junior women economists at the CeMENT workshop sponsored by the AEA at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Beyond academia, Dr. Wang is a mother of three children. She enjoys architecture, art, photography, and music. Her favorite architects include Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, and Zaha Hadid. She is also inspired by the works of Georgia O’Keeffe, Edward Hopper, and Claude Monet. A musician herself, she plays the piano, violin, and pipa (a Chinese lute). Her favorite composer is Johann Sebastian Bach of the Baroque period.

Dr. Richard Leitch earned his BA in East Asian Studies from Colby College in 1985, and went on to earn an MA in Asian Studies from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign after a two-year career on Wall Street. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Illinois in 1995, where he was the recipient of the Harriet and Charles Luckman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching, and the College of Liberal Arts Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Graduate Assistant. He has been a member of the Political Science Department since 1996, where he teaches courses in International Relations, Comparative Politics, Asian Politics, Environmental Politics, and the Politics of Poverty. In 2000 he received the Swenson-Bunn Award for Teaching Excellence at Gustavus, and in 2008 the Edgar M. Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching. In 2012 he was included in The Princeton Review's The Best 300 Professors. He was recognized as an Honorary Gustie by the Gustavus Alumni Association in 2024. His research interests include Japanese domestic politics and foreign policy, and he is the co-author of Japan's Role in the Post-Cold War World. A frequent speaker to off-campus groups, Leitch has given numerous presentations focused on US foreign policy, US-China relations, and geopolitical issues. 

Jeff Jenson joined Gustavus in August 2007, bringing extensive experience in archives development, public service, and education. In his role, he is dedicated to building and strengthening archival collections, improving access to historical materials, and ensuring the long-term preservation of vital records. Deeply committed to public service and education, he works to connect communities with information resources and assists researchers in fostering meaningful engagement with archival materials. He also collaborates closely with faculty and students, developing instructional sessions that promote the effective use of primary sources and research tools in academic settings.

Embracing the diverse nature of the liberal arts tradition, Jenson’s research interests span a wide range of topics, with his most recent publications and presentations exploring the history of timber rattlesnakes in Minnesota. He is an active member of the archival and library communities, presenting or facilitating sessions at the Midwest Archives Conference, Twin Cities Archives Round Table (TCART), Brick & Click Academic Library Conference, and the ACRL Conference. In addition, Jeff serves as a researcher with the DNA Doe Project.

Beyond his professional affiliations, Jenson is heavily involved in institutional leadership at the College. He has served as Chair of the Library and Archives Department and actively contributes to the campus community through his service on numerous faculty committees. His campus involvement has included roles on the Faculty Senate, the Adjudication Board, Third-Year Review Committee, as a Liberal Arts Search Committee Representative for several searches, and as a faculty representative on the Conduct Board.