About Us
Stop by CH 349 to meet us in person, or read about us below:
Kevin Kecskes, Ph.D.
Associate Vice Provost for Engagement and
Director of Community-University Partnerships kecskesk@pdx.edu
Kevin Kecskes, Associate Vice Provost for Engagement, and Director for Community-University Partnerships, is charged with helping campus and community constituents live the university motto: “Let Knowledge Serve the City.” Kevin was the Director of Service-Learning at Washington Campus Compact, and the Program Director of the Western Region Campus Compact Consortium from 1997-2002. Kevin co-founded the Boston College International Volunteer Program and has spent a dozen years working, serving, and studying in the developing world, primarily in Latin America and Asia. His recent publications focus on the nexus between cultural theory and community-campus partnerships, faculty and institutional development for civic engagement, student leadership development, ethics and community-based learning, values education, and service-learning impacts on community partners. Kevin edited Engaging Departments: Moving Faculty Culture from Private to Public, Individual to Collective Focus for the Common Good (2006, Anker Publications). Kevin is affiliated faculty in the Mark O. Hatfield School of Government, where he annually teaches courses on “civic leadership” in the Division of Public Administration and Policy. He received his B.S. from Boston College, Ed.M. from Harvard University, and Ph.D. from PSU.
Leslie McBride, Ph.D.
Associate Vice Provost for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Leslie McBride, PhD (Education), Associate Vice Provost for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. Leslie McBride has served as Co-Director of CAE since 2007. She was named Associate Vice Provost for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment in 2009. Prior to co-directing CAE, Leslie served for 22 years as a faculty member in the School of Community Health at Portland State where she served twice as interim director and as chair of the Department of Health Studies. At CAE, her focus is on the role of faculty development in institutional change. Her current scholarship concerns faculty and curricular development for sustainability and the role of the academic portfolio in faculty development. Leslie represents CAE on issues of teaching, learning, and assessment, as well as supervising on-line learning responsibilities of CAE’s instructional design team. She received her B.S. and M.Ed. from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and her Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University.
Amy Spring, MPA
Assistant Director for Community-University Partnerships
Ms. Spring works with PSU students, faculty, staff, and community partners to facilitate and support community-based learning. She has been responsible for coordinating and facilitating assessment activities, faculty and student development workshops, student and faculty participation in community-based work, the development of community-based curriculum, and all grant financial and programmatic reporting. She developed and manages the Student Leaders for Service Program in which students work in community organizations as leaders and advocates for community engagement. On the national level, Amy has presented and published on a range of topics including: student leadership development in service learning; impact assessment of service learning on students, faculty and community partners, and defining, documenting & evaluating the scholarships of engagement and teaching. She received her Masters degree in Public Administration from Portland State University’s Hatfield School of Government. Her emphasis of study was service learning and its impacts on students, faculty, and community partners. She received her undergraduate degrees in Sociology and Urban Studies and Planning. She is proud mother of Easton (11) and Fiona (13) Spring.
Janelle Voegele
Assistant Director for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Janelle works with faculty and graduate teaching assistants in both classroom and community-based settings. She provides individual consultation, classroom observation, workshops and seminar courses focused on a variety of issues related to teaching and learning in higher education. Janelle has over twenty years experience in postsecondary education, and has taught in a wide range of classroom and online environments - large and small, introductory and advanced level. She has won two student-nominated teaching awards while at PSU. Her research interests include the role of faculty in community-based learning settings, and the impact of academic portfolio development on faculty scholarship and professional development.
Specialization: Consultation on teaching, learning, assessment and curricular enhancement; strategies to increase student engagement and learning.
Patrice Morris Hudson, MS
Program Administrator
As program administrator, Patrice supports each of the units in the CAE. She coordinates CAE programs and events in collaboration with CAE faculty and staff, thereby providing resources to enhance and support the work of faculty and the academic departments. She coordinates CAE site visits, manages the CAE library, maintains program statistics, participates in grant-writing, edits and designs the CAE annual report, and manages the CAE web site. In addition to her CAE responsibilities, Patrice serves as Co-Chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women, and is a certified notary public. As a Peace Corps volunteer (1988-90), Patrice worked as a teacher-trainer in Belize, Central America after earning her BS in Education at PSU in 1988. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi, and a repeat alumna of Portland State University having also earned an M.S. in Publishing in 2008 and a Graduate Certificate in Teaching Adult Learners in 2011. A strong believer in community-based learning, Patrice will again be teaching a summer capstone class.
Tyler Matta
Assessment Associate
As the Assessment Associate, Tyler supports the design and facilitation of program-level assessment of student learning outcomes. Prior to arriving at Portland State, Tyler taught in varied settings including New York City's public schools and the Pacific Northwest College of Art. He has a Masters of Science in Art and Design Education from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York and has since undergone formal training in applied statistics and psychometrics. Tyler's primary interests include research design, causal inference, and data visualization.
Jessica Conley
Program Coordinator for Student Leaders for Service
As the Program Coordinator for Student Leaders for Service, Jessica supports graduate and undergraduate students through nine-month community engagement placements at local organizations. These students provide direct service while acting as a liaison between the university and the community: connecting institutional resources to PSU partner organizations, supporting fellow students fulfilling community-based learning requirements, planning annual days of service, and bringing community-focused projects to campus. Jessica started work as Program Coordinator in the summer of 2011.
