Dr. Christine Cress is Professor of Educational Leadership, Higher Education Policy, and Service-Learning at Portland State University (PSU). She received her Ph.D. from UCLA, has been a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and a Visiting Scholar at Reitaku University, Japan. She has led international student service-learning multiple times to India and conducted faculty training on curricular integration of service-learning at scores of colleges and schools in North America, Europe, Japan, India, and Nepal.
At PSU, she coordinates Master and Doctoral degrees and a fully on-line Graduate Certificate in Service-Learning. Guided by culturally-contextualized and equity-centered engagement, her students in the U.S. and abroad have helped empower community change and worked to leverage social, economic, educational, and environmental justice in collaboration with hundreds of organizations, schools, colleges, and agencies across the globe.
Cress is an accomplished scholar (over 250 professional presentations and 100 publications including five books) on pedagogical strategies, intercultural communication, and assessment of service-learning. She is lead author of the internationally best-selling textbook, Learning through Serving: A Student Guidebook for Service-Learning and Civic Engagement across Academic Disciplines and Cultural Communities that has been translated into Arabic, Japanese, and Spanish. Her forthcoming book, Faculty Guidebook to Service-Learning: Enacting Equity-Centered Teaching, Partnerships, and Scholarship will be published in Fall 2022.
Cress is a U.S. State Department Connected-Classrooms Steven’s Initiative Scholar where she is collaborating with Mohammed VI University of Health Sciences in Morocco in addressing community health issues via Virtual Learning Exchange. For the last three years, Cress has been a Collaborative On-Line International Learning (COIL) Scholar with Reitaku University where PSU and Japanese students collaborate in on-line synchronous and asynchronous service-learning focused on development of intercultural skills, emergency preparedness of local communities, and universal/equity design of inclusive educational and employment practices.
Cress is a Certified Trainer for Campus Compact’s micro-credentialing program in community-based learning. She previously served on the Executive Board of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (IARSCLE), as Portland State ELP Department Chair for 5 years, and has a decade of prior experience in Student Affairs administration including new student orientation, academic support, and career advising at Western Washington University, Northwest Indian College, and Whatcom Community College. In 2017, she received the Campus Compact Oregon Faculty Engaged Scholar Award.