Professor profile: Ben Anderson-Nathe

Ben Anderson-Nathe is an associate professor at Portland State and the director of the Child and Family Studies program in the School of Social Work. Anderson-Nathe was born and raised in the Portland area and went to Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. After earning his bachelor’s degree and working for a few years, he decided he wanted to experience true winters.

He moved to Minnesota, where he lived for six years and picked up master’s degrees in both social work and public policy and a doctorate in community education and youth studies.

When he was finished experiencing the Minnesota winters, Anderson-Nathe decided to come home, where he found Portland State and the Child and Family Studies program. He became an adjunct professor in 2004, started teaching full time in 2006, and became the director in the fall of 2011.

Most of Anderson-Nathe’s background is in the field of youth work, mainly with young people who have not had a tremendous amount of adult support or self-determination. At PSU, he teaches mainly professional development in different fields, helping professionals who are present in the lives of young people.

“What brought me to higher education and the university setting in the first place is that I absolutely love being with, learning with and being challenged by students’ thinking,” Anderson-Nathe said.

“I have really clear memories in my own educational biography of moments with faculty and with other people where I was just aware of my consciousness expanding and…thinking about new things and having my head hurt because the conversation…really pushed me in ways that I hadn’t been pushed before.”

Anderson-Nathe said that he gets to feel like that every day in his job, and that fills his soul. He said he is “bent” by the wisdom of the students he comes into contact with, and being part of that process is the most affirming thing for him.

He believes that PSU is a great university because it recognizes that students come from all kinds of different positions, locations and experiences. “We all kind of come together and try to figure out how to be better in the world than we were when we came in,” Anderson-Nathe said. “That’s just amazing.”

Outside of academics, Anderson-Nathe’s interests include traveling, hanging out with friends and family and being outside. “Not surprisingly, being an academic, I actually like to read. And I love to take my child out to a barn where she gets to ride a horse and be totally in love with it,” he said. Like most Portland natives, Anderson-Nathe loves hiking, being outdoors and sitting in pubs while having great conversations.

Anderson-Nathe believes that the Child and Family Studies program truly prepares people to go into the world and change things.

“We understand that the world as it is isn’t the world that it needs to be, and that students come out of our major with some real skills to help move [it] to where it ought to be,” Anderson-Nathe said. “And that’s so extremely affirming; I just love it.”