September 2023 Spotlight

Crystal L. McCabe, Full Professor, Online Full-Time Faculty, College of Education

She earned her Ph.D. in General Psychology with an emphasis in Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Her doctoral work focused on job embeddedness, or why people stay at their jobs. Crystal is fascinated by human behavior and motivation. She has two master’s degrees, one in Special Education and the other in Professional Counseling. Both assisted her well in her employment as both a full-time college professor and as a licensed counselor.

Crystal has been working in the field of education for the past 17 years. Dr. McCabe has been extremely active in both disciplinary and SoTL research. She has presented at over a dozen national conferences across the United States. Twice she was an invited presenter, once for the National Teaching Professor Conference in 2019 and in 2021 for the Distance Teaching and Learning Conference.

Crystal was the co-recipient of the 2020 Shauna Schullo Award for Best Distance Teaching Practices. Crystal has been featured in the Teaching Showcase in 2016 and 2023, published in JIR in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2021 along with other publications, and presented at the Kevin McClean Research Colloquium in both 2022 and 2023.

Crystal has traveled across the country to provide professional development for K-12 school districts through Canyon PD. Crystal is currently assisting in the validation of an instrument to be used in studying perceived structural empowerment in faculty teaching in higher education. In addition, she is leading a project to take the Canyon Center for Character Education (CCCE) online and is working with two graduate research assistants who will be helping her co-lead the ‘Lopes Lead with Character’ online student group. The overarching focus of the group is on virtues, and she is planning to mentor her graduate research assistants and write up the findings of the CCCE project as well!