Donald Little III, PhD joined the faculty of Geneva College as assistant professor of biology in the fall of 2024. In his brief time so far at the College, he has greatly contributed to the mission of integrating faith and learning in ways that reach beyond the surface level, and he champions a robust liberal arts education through his multidisciplinary approach. Little’s passion for biology, and for teaching biology to students in a way that glorifies God, is evident in his work.
When in high school, Little’s love for animals urged him to study biology at Purdue University with the intention of becoming a veterinarian. To get as much experience as possible for a competitive veterinary school application process, he tried a range of extracurriculars, as well as taking on research projects and working as a teaching assistant.
Little particularly enjoyed his time as a teaching assistant in a freshman lab because he was able to mentor students and work side by side with them in a personal setting. “I always saw it as the beginning of my investment in students younger than me, just like people older than me had invested in me,” he shares.
As his interest in teaching, research, and biology classes grew, Little made the decision to attend graduate school rather than veterinary school. Although it was a decision made after a tumultuous time of questioning, advice-seeking, and networking with working professionals to figure out his next step, Little recognizes God’s providence in leading him down the right path the whole time.
The impact of truly giving his life to Christ during graduate school significantly deepened the purpose that Little found in his research and teaching. He completed a doctorate in cancer biology at the University of Michigan in 2021 and then spent a brief time at Concordia University Ann Arbor, where he gained more understanding of the liberal arts and their place in education. While Little already had a passion for biology and interacting with students through teaching, he continued to develop a more holistic view of his discipline and a view of teaching that emphasized glorifying God.
“When I became a Christian, it turned everything on its head,” says Little. “[Teaching] wasn’t only about whether I get anything out of it, but it was about glorifying the Lord. We wonder where we get our gifts and passions from — they’re from the Lord, and for His purposes. With my passion for biology, it fascinates me to think down to the molecular level about how everything is so intricately connected. I love sharing that with students, helping them to appreciate the complexity of God’s design and His ongoing care for His creation.”
Little goes beyond regular classes in supporting and challenging his students. He is currently working with three students on research projects and integration papers, which he views as an opportunity for both personal connection and creative and intellectual growth. Little says, “When a student shows interest in a topic at more than a class level, then you can give them an avenue to go a step further and let them take ownership of their work. The foundation is serving the student in a way that will help them succeed after they go off from Geneva, and giving them the academic freedom to go deeper.”
“Going deeper” doesn’t necessarily mean dealing with increasingly difficult or obscure biological topics — sometimes it also means taking into account the philosophical dimensions of what one is studying. Little often incorporates art, music, and history in his own classes.
“I’ve often thought as a genetics major — everything is DNA. It shapes pretty much everything biologically. But then I started thinking about the reality that we’re body and soul. When it comes to understanding human life, those types of questions are essential, but nothing in the lab can address them. It’s not just cells in a dish or organs in a body. If you completely divorce biology from philosophy or theology, you lose a lot.”
Little himself was not surrounded by the liberal arts and a fully faith-integrated approach to learning until after graduate school. However, he has played a role in helping to provide this for homeschooling families in the local area as one of the founders of Coram Deo Classical Center. Coram Deo is a Christ-centered classical learning community offering a fully developed curriculum for K-12 students.
Things fell into place for the creation of Coram Deo just as Little began teaching at Geneva. A board was established in early 2025, and the school is now most of the way through its first year of classes. Little serves as president and board chair, as well as teaching biology — although that is not one of the seven liberal arts that the school’s educational system is grounded in.
“STEM tends to be the black sheep when it comes to liberal arts. I would love to have an impact on changing that,” says Little. “Just as I would challenge a biologist to integrate philosophy and theology and history, I think other disciplines can do the same in including science and biology because it’s all part of God’s created order.”
Little stresses the importance of cultivating and pursuing a range of interests: “To be too one-track minded takes away a lot of opportunity for praise that we can give to the Lord. The more vast your view is, the more you see His handiwork and His love and His mercy. That fills our hearts and allows us to praise Him all the more as we see the dynamic way that He is sustaining things.”
In Little’s dedication to his field and students, his passion amplifies how worthy the Lord is of our praise — for the incredible care and detail in His creation, in which every aspect of the world around us is connected in a way that inspires wonder.
By Reagan Shields ‘26
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