Alumni Spotlight
Dr. Eric Patterson, 1994
Major/Degree: Bachelor of Arts
in Biblical Studies and Bachelor of Music Education
Occupation: Assistant
Professor of Political Science and Coordinator for Institutional Research
Mary (Crooks) Patterson, 1992
Major/Degree: Bachelor
of Science in Education
Occupation: Homemaker and Adjunct
Professor of Children’s
Literature
Eric Patterson and Mary Crooks met while serving on the Evangel Student Homecoming Committee. She was AECS (Student Government) secretary, and he was a senator. They began dating and ultimately got married in 1994.
Mary graduated from Evangel in 1992 with a degree in elementary education. She went on to spend the summer in Venezuela on a MAPS assignment.
Eric graduated in 1994 with a double major in biblical studies and music education. After his and Mary’s marriage, he went to Wales as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar and earned his master’s degree in international politics in 1995. He graduated from the Air Force Reserve/ANG Academy of Military Science in 1998, and in 2002, he earned his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California in Santa Barbara.
His list of published works includes two books, Latin America’s Neo-Reformation: Faith and Politics in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico (2005) and The Christian Realists: Reassessing the Contributions of Niebuhr and his Contemporaries (2003).
Until recently, Mary taught elementary school, first in Bonsall, California, and later in Ventura, California. She currently teaches Children’s Literature as an adjunct professor at Vanguard University. Eric is an assistant professor of political science and coordinator for institutional research at Vanguard University in Costa Mesa, California. He also is a captain in the California Air National Guard and commander and conductor of the 562 nd Air Force Band, a reservist military band at Channel Islands Air National Guard Base.
Eric and Mary have two children. Spencer is the proud brother of a baby sister, Jane Margaret, who was born in August of 2004.
The family attends Newport Mesa Christian Center, where they are on the leadership team for a young marrieds group, have facilitated an adult class and taught children’s Sunday school. Mary is an officer in the local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) chapter. “In my own life, a vibrant Christian life has meant connecting with the church community and serving where I can,” she said.
Eric has been a Rotarian since 1996. He is a past president of the Ventura Marina Rotary Club and currently serves as the Centennial Project Chair of the Rotary Club of Newport-Irvine. Part of the club’s Centennial Project is to work with a local builder in raffling off a $600,000 home, which will net more than $1 million for the Irvine Public Schools Foundation.
Next year Eric will leave Vanguard as a William C. Foster Fellow at the Bureau of Political and Military Affairs, U.S. Department of State. The program allows academics to see the “real world” of policy by working on arms control issues.
Both Eric and Mary believe that Evangel University played a major role in their lives, and they enjoyed their time at Evangel very much. “I particularly value the mentoring relationship of faculty and administrators,” Eric said. “The size and intimacy of EU made it possible to feel like an individual and not get swallowed up in a massive campus population. I saw at the University of California, where I attended grad school, how one freshman out of 6,000 freshmen can easily get lost.”
“The emphasis on spiritual life at the center of one’s existence was very important. EU’s focus on spirituality helped me mature through courses, chapel and group devotions,” Mary said. “I was influenced by the emphasis that the Education Department placed on Christians as salt and light in public schools. After 10 years of teaching, I can testify to the soundness of the idea that we need Christian teachers, parent volunteers and administrators in public schools.”