Mark J. Zia, S.T.D., is associate professor of theology and director of academic enrichment programs at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, where he has worked for the past ten years. He travels around the country instructing candidates for ordination to the permanent diaconate. Zia has a doctorate is in dogmatic theology from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, and an undergraduate degree from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. He is married and the father of seven children.