Christina F. Jeffrey: Senior Researcher, Independent Scholar

Christina F. Jeffrey’s first job in South Carolina was at Limestone College, where she developed the political science and criminal justice program. In 2002, she was the Spartanburg Eastside 72 Hour Coordinator and was appointed by the newly elected governor to the South Carolina Governor’s Education Task Force. She served as President of the Emerald Mountain Christian School Friends of the Library in Wetumpka, Alabama, in 2003, and helped to raise money for a building to house a priceless collection of books donated to the school by Rosalind Kress Haley.

From 2004-2007, she worked for Coastal Carolina University as a visiting associate professor and curriculum consultant. The summer of 2004, she advised two congressional candidates, and was herself elected at the 2004 SC State Convention to represent this State as a delegate to the GOP National Convention in New York City.

Christina was campaign manager in 2006 for Dr. Henry Jordan in the primary for Lt. Governor, after which she coordinated part of Karen Floyd’s campaign for Superintendent of Education. She is also a volunteer member of the Children’s Security Blanket Project Board, a nonprofit organization that assists critically ill Spartanburg children and their families. In 2007, Christina worked as Foundations and Development Director for the Palladian Group in Spartanburg.

Within the Republican Party, she was the Executive Committeeman of her home precinct of Trinity Methodist, where she formerly served as Precinct President. She was also a delegate to the 2008 State Convention, and has served as Secretary of the Spartanburg County Republican Party for 5 years. She was the first Awards and Fundraising Chair for the Palmetto House Republican Women and is currently the Parliamentarian.

Christina advised Ph.D. students, writes curriculum, and teaches part-time, online, for Capella University. She has taught Graduate Public Administration for Troy State University in Atlanta, Turkey, and Germany. Also, as a tenured Associate Professor at Kennesaw State University for 13 years, she taught American Government courses, including one on Southern Politics. She has also taught elementary and high school students. She currently teaches Introduction to American Government; U.S. Constitution, public policy, public administration as well as courses on bioethics and separation of church and state. Particular emphasis on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and the Federalist Papers.

Christina’s M.A. and Ph.D. work at The University of Alabama was supported by a National Defense Act Fellowship. Her doctoral dissertation was a policy study on both politics and economics. Following graduate school, she worked as Manager of International Trade at the Birmingham Area Chamber of Commerce promoting exporting.

Christina has been named to the Alabama Governor’s Commission on the Year of the Child, the Alabama Women’s Commission, the National Society for Public Administration’s Hall of Champions, as Historian of the United States House of Representatives and annually from 1975 - 1987, an “Outstanding Young Woman of America.” She was an officer of Alabama Young Americans for Freedom and the State College Republicans throughout graduate school, Co-chairman of the Emphasis Committee at the University of Alabama, tutor for Paul “Bear” Bryant’s football program, and as a teenager, an award-winning poet. She has been affiliated with the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, Eagle Forum and the Mindszenty Foundation for the past 30 years and more recently with the American Society for Public Administration (serving as a chapter president), and the National Association of Scholars. In her youth, she was a competitive swimmer. Swimming in Columbia in 1963, she set a record that remains unbroken.