Dr. Stelmach earned his bachelor’s degree in International Affairs and Latin American Studies from Whittier College in Whittier, California. He then received a Master of Theological Studies from the Divinity School at Harvard University. In 1977 he earned his Ph.D. in a joint program with the Graduate Theological Union and the University of California in Berkeley in the fields of Social Theory, Social Ethics, and Religious Studies. He also holds a Certificate of Ecumenical Studies from the Ecumenical Institute operated by the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland.

 

​

For twenty years he served as a tenured full professor and chair of the Humanities Department at Dominican University of California in San Rafael, California. His courses spanned the general humanities with specialties in religion, ethics and social science.

 

​

Prior to his arrival at Dominican University, Dr. Stelmach taught at both St. Mary’s College in Moraga and the University of San Francisco. Along with serving on the boards of numerous non-profit organizations, he was the CEO for five-years managing a religious non-profit, The Vesper Society, sponsoring international conferences on the topics of economic and environmental justice.

​​

 

Dr. Stelmach co-authored with Robert Traer, “Doing Ethics in a Diverse World”, a work that attempts to provide a practical framework for challenging ethical relativism and religious fundamentalism by bridging moral philosophy and religious ethics. The book aims to help students confront the many challenges they face in a contended pluralistic and interdependent world.

​

​

He has also been published in “The Journal of Teaching Ethics”, “The Pacific Coast Theological Journal”, “The Ecumenical Review”, and “The American Sociologist.” His list of papers and public lectures is extensive and multi-disciplinary. His dedication to and love for learning has led friends and colleagues to describe Dr. Stelmach and as an inspirational teacher, leader, and an excellent role model for those seeking careers in the academic world. His writings and experience exemplify his dedication to teaching and learning inside and outside the formal classroom.

 

​

Dr. Stelmach’s main intellectual influences, in religion and socialism began at Harvard, where he was introduced to the work of sociologist, Talcott Parsons, Theologian Harvey Cox, Religious and Cultural Sociologist, Robert Bellah and Religious Ethicist and Social Theorist, Reinhold Niebuhr. Though on a track to the parish ministry through a Rockefeller Fellowship he decided on a teaching ministry.

​

 

A year of study at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland introduced him to ecumenical theology, influenced by the Dean of Harvard Divinity School, Krister Stendahl. He continued his studies at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) and the University of California in Berkely. It was here that he focused more the work of Robert Bellah and the religious socialism of Reinhold Niebuhr. Bellah had just left Harvard and was now based in Berkeley at UC Berkeley and the GTU. John Bennett, former President of Union Seminary, a main interpreter of Reinhold Niebuhr, was also at the GTU’s Pacific School of Religion, which cemented Dr. Stelmach’s interest in the Bellah and Niebuhr.

​

 

Arriving in Berkeley in the summer of 1970 he became a member of the collective that published the NACLA Report, a publication that researched American imperialism in Latin America. This work furthered his education and commitment to an anti-capitalist critique. In the midst of his doctoral studies, he co-founded “Radical Religion” a religious socialist journal. The journal was a recreation of a journal by the same name that Reinhold Niebuhr founded in the 1930s.

​

 

Completing his doctoral studies in 1977 he began teaching at the University of San Francisco for five years but returned to Berkeley and the GTU to manage the Center for Ethics and Social Policy as its Executive Director. His focus was on multi-sector events and analyses that included economic and business ethics. As a Visiting Scholar at UCB’s Haas Business School he was introduced to the systems theories of C. West Churchman.

​

 

He and his first wife, Madelyn McKenzie Stelmach, made Berkeley their home and raised two daughters, Amy and Megan. With a long history of participating in sports, especially baseball, he co-founded the Albany-Berkeley Girls Softball League in 1984, which still exists today with over 300 girls playing fast-pitch softball. His vision for the league, informed by his work in the fields of religion, ethics and socialism, was for a league based on healthy competition.

​

 

He currently lives half-time in Berkeley and The Sea Ranch in California. Following the deaths of both spouses he and Margot Wenger, a retired lawyer, a friend of fifty years, were married in 2018 and share four children and nine grandchildren.