Robin Teater Hired as Executive Assistant to the Dean and Project Manager

The Portland State University School of Social Work is excited to announce that Robin Teater has been hired as the new Executive Assistant to the Dean and Project Manager!

Robin first started with PSU in 2021 as a part-time Public Engagement Consultant contractor with Oregon's Kitchen Table.

Robin has experience as a Public Engagement Consultant (various clients); Executive Director, Healthy Democracy Fund; Executive Director, American Leadership Forum of Oregon; Executive Director, WorldTeach; National Director of Volunteer Development, AFS Intercultural Programs; High School Social Studies Teacher, Crane Union High School; and is a former 2 time Peace Corps Volunteer in Botswana (southern Africa) and Tanzania (east Africa).

Having worked in the democracy reform and leadership development space for the past nearly 20 years, Robin has a keen interest in how systems support - or don't - the full capacities of individuals to participate fully and meaningfully in civic life. She is interested in building systems that support the dignity and worth of every individual, how that connects to creating a more just and mutually beneficial community, and how that in turn enhances our capacity for effective self-governance, whereupon we collectively implement systems that better support the dignity and worth of every individual. Robin sees social work as a critical leverage point in creating this kind of virtuous cycle, and she is honored to be part of the SSW at Portland State which is widely regarded as an important leader in the field.

Robin enjoys walking, flatwater kayaking, and doting on a small flock of backyard chickens, one rescue dog, and a rag-tag pride of feral cats that she adopted many years ago. Robin is the proud aunt and great-aunt of an amazing array of brilliant young people, most of whom live within driving distance so visits are a high priority. She is a hopeless podcast addict (she still has an iPod shuffle upon which she downloaded her first RadioLab podcast a lifetime ago). When sedentary, Robin can be found reading on subjects from politics to nature to hiking to poetry to, well, whatever book lands in her hands, really.