Dr. Lauren Servais

Vice President of Instruction Candidate

Higher education transformed Lauren’s life.  In her 20+ years as an educator, Dr. Lauren Servais has endeavored to pay the transformation forward. Anchoring in her intersectional identity as local to Hawai’i, mixed, a daughter and granddaughter of immigrants from China, Samoa, and the Philippines, and a speaker of Hawai’i Creole, Lauren succeeded as a student by understanding the power of her home community. 

Cultural frameworks like pono (making things right and striving for righteousness), lokahi (unity), aloha (love), malama (care), kuleana (responsibility and accountability), and ‘ohana (family) are central to Lauren’s work as educator and learner.  Lauren cultivates her community practices and values, while weaving them into a framework of critical pedagogy, critical race theory, and culturally sustaining practices. 

As Dean of Arts & Humanities at College of Marin, Lauren strives to facilitate the building of community across the college that embodies the best of what we hope to witness in student learning. Lauren has been tenured twice–first as founding faculty at Cascadia Community College (Washington) and second at Santa Rosa Junior College. Lauren has participated in institution-building, accreditation, college-wide learning outcome teams, Academic Senate, and more. She has also served as English Department Chair, Chair of Department Chairs Council, Puente Co-coordinator, Asian and Pacific Islander American Student Success Co-coordinator, New Faculty Professional Learning Co-coordinator, Equity Coordinator, and more. Additionally, Lauren has facilitated professional learning across California as a coordinator with 3CSN; in this capacity, she developed and facilitated Equity 101 and Equity 102, which were asynchronous online courses introducing educators to equity principles and practices.

Lauren earned her BA in English from the University of Hawai’i, MA in English Literature from the University of Colorado, MEd in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Washington, and EdD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies from the University of Arizona. Lauren’s dissertation is titled, “Learning from rip currents to wayfind higher education: Towards an onto-epistemology of Oceana.”  

Lauren is a proud mom and auntie, and she hopes that all learners are met with the same aloha she expects to be extended to her ‘ohana.