Professor Owens joined the Valparaiso University faculty in 2000 and the English faculty in 2001.

He enjoys the size of the school and the fact that it is primarily an undergraduate institution because he believes those basic qualities make for a very effective undergraduate education.

Professor Owens feels his role as a professor is to set a good scholarly as well as personal example and serve as a role model for his students. He believes that the model of responsible intellectual inquiry set by a teacher makes an enormous impact.

His academic interests include American literature between the Civil War and World War II, literary modernism, African American literature, and composition. More specifically, he enjoys studying Ambrose Bierce's Civil War short fiction, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and the modern American short story. His book, The Devil's Topographer: Ambrose Bierce and the American War Story, has been published by the University of Tennessee Press.  He is currently working with Prof Buinicki on a major research project concerning Civil War fiction in the periodical press during the late 1800s.

In addition to teaching English classes, Professor Owens chairs the department's Scholarship and Student Affairs Committee, serves on the Arts and Sciences Scholarship and Advising Committee, and the university's Assessment Committee.  In his free time, he enjoys biking, running, staying active at his church, and learning to play the banjo.