Inside the Classroom: Professor David Zacker Brings Global Perspectives to ECC Students

David Zacker, PhD, professor of humanities at Elgin Community College (ECC), brings a global outlook and a deep commitment to personal growth into his classroom. Whether teaching about the Renaissance, discussing Aristotle’s view on ethics, or leading students on a trip to Italy, Zacker emphasizes how the power of ideas can transform lives and open possibilities.

“These courses I teach are courses about ideas,” he says. Encountering new ideas can broaden students’ worldview. “They might say, ‘Wow, that’s something I never thought of. That opens my mind to new ways of thinking about the world.’ And that can change the way they go through life.”

Global View

Zacker has been teaching at ECC for 26 years, and his experience spans both the classroom and the globe.

In summer 2023 and 2024, he led ECC study-abroad trips to Urbania, Italy. He’s previously taken students to the Amazon rainforest, to the Galápagos Islands, and on a three-week trek through the Himalayas. And he recently took a sabbatical, during which he traveled to Brazil to research and refresh material for a Modern Western Humanities course.

These international experiences aren’t just travel for travel’s sake—they’re carefully woven into his teaching philosophy.

Zacker, who enjoys hiking, gardening, woodworking, and spending time outdoors, wants to help students expand their perspectives and engage with the natural world around them.

“Part of it is reminding students that there’s a world outside of their phone, or outside of technology, that continues to exist whether they’re paying attention to it or not, and they are part of it,” he says. “The purpose of these courses is for personal growth, to develop a better understanding of the world and also a better understanding of yourself.”

Power of the Past

In spring 2024, Zacker took a sabbatical to focus on revamping ECC’s Modern Western Humanities course, which has not been taught since before the pandemic.

The course traces the history of Western civilization from the Renaissance to the present day, including the development of culture, ideas, religion, music, and art. But Zacker realized the course needed fresh material and broader perspectives, including more content about the influence of Western colonial culture in Latin and South America, as the cultures blend indigenous traditions with Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian influences in art, architecture, and religion.

During his sabbatical, he traveled to Brazil, where he studied how African cultural traditions brought to the country by enslaved people mesh with Catholic belief systems brought by Europeans.

He hopes the revamped course, which he will teach in spring 2026, resonates with students, including those with ties to Latin America and South America.

Zacker wants students to understand the roots of their culture—where cultural beliefs or structures come from, and how they are responses to the past.

“Knowing your past helps to inform your present, which will help inform your future,” he says. He wants students to see “how we can learn from the past and try not to make the same mistakes.”

Developing Courage

In his Ethics course, Zacker explores Aristotle’s concept of virtue ethics—the idea that qualities like honesty, patience, and courage help people fulfill their roles in society.

Courage, he says, is one of the most valuable virtues students can develop while in school.

“One of the things you need to do as a student is open your mind to ideas that you never thought about before, or ideas that you thought were flat-out wrong,” he says.

“A good college education will broaden your perspectives and invariably result in you changing your mind about something — probably a lot of small things, but hopefully some big things too. And that takes courage, because you have to risk the possibility of changing a belief that has been guiding your life,”

Humanities Center

Zacker co-directs ECC’s Humanities Center. The center hosts a speaker series that brings in one or two visiting speakers each semester, with topics ranging from Bitcoin to art and incarceration.

It also hosts weekly watch parties, where students and faculty view popular TV series with philosophical content and discuss them online.

The center hosts the Socrates Café every other week, a casual philosophical conversation open to all. “I bring pizza, and I ask them for a list of ideas,” Zacker says. “We put the ideas on the board, and whatever they vote on is what we talk about that day.” Topics range from timeless to quirky: What is happiness? What is success? Is pineapple pizza still considered pizza?

Whether in Brazil, Italy, or the Socrates Café, Zacker’s goal is the same: to help students expand their horizons, understand themselves, and engage with the world around them.