Dr. Mike Klein

Mike Klein, Ed.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Justice and Peace Studies at the University of St. Thomas. He teaches undergraduate courses in Leadership for Social Justice, Qualitative Research, Introduction to Justice and Peace Studies; seminars in art and social change, historical interpretation for contemporary justice, and coffee as lens for interdisciplinary analysis; and graduate courses on social justice pedagogy, critical education in social movements, and the pedagogy of Paulo Freire. His research, publishing, and consulting focus on: democratizing leadership, peace education, popular culture, intersections of art and social justice, and peacebuilding. He develops the agency of students and communities to transform social structures and advance social justice.

Klein is the author of Democratizing Leadership: Counter-hegemonic Democracy in Organizations, Institutions, and Communities (2016), Neighborhood Leadership (with Damon Shoholm, 2017), and numerous articles, book chapters, and edited volumes.

He received a 2007 Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship to complete his 2009 dissertation, Raising Hands: Ritualizing Leadership for Democratic Decision-making and Action.

An artist focused on community-based projects, Klein has collaborated on murals with a boxing and African dance program, a youth farm project, a multi-cultural immigrant community, an alternative high school, a Catholic elementary school, a crisis nursery, and a food program for people living with HIV/AIDS. He is also a #ArtIsMyWeapon Artist with Pillsbury United Communities in Minneapolis, creatively addressing violence by producing art from de-commissioned weapons.

He lives with his wife Theresa, daughter Mikayla, and dog Maggie in St. Paul, Minnesota.