Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Christine Walther, College of Human Sciences and Humanities

If you look up the definition of reliable and dependable, you will find that they are synonymous. Reliable is consistently good in quality or performance; able to be trusted. Dependable is trustworthy and reliable.

But if you look up the definition of reliability in statistics, one of the classes that Dr. Christine Walther teaches most frequently, you will find overall consistency and stability of measurement. All of these definitions could aptly describe Dr. Walther, professor of psychology and associate dean of the College of Human Sciences and Humanities.

"She is among the most well-rounded faculty at this university," said Dr. Chris Ward, professor and department chair of the Department of Psychological and Nursing Sciences, Walther's home department. "She excels in all of the areas of teaching, research and service."

Ward has known Walther since her arrival at University of Houston Clear Lake. He was the chair of the search committee that hired Walther.

"And she was one of those who just came in and instantly started to hit the ground running," he said.

That was 12 years ago, after earning her PhD in Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. In those 12 years, Walther has earned promotion and tenure from assistant to associate professor, promotion from associate to full professor, served as Faculty Senate President and has served her first year as associate dean of HSH.

Reliability.

"Whenever she does something, it gets done," Ward said. "She isn't just sitting on the committee. She's running the committee. She's writing the reports. She's developing the policies. She is always going to be performing at an excellent level."

Perhaps that is why Dr. Stephen Cotten, professor of economics in the College of Business, nominated her for the President's Distinguished Faculty Award for Outstanding Service in 2024. Or perhaps it was because he had personally been a beneficiary of Walther's reliable service.

"When I was on the Faculty Senate leadership, she made life so much easier because she knew where everything was at all times," Cotten said. "She is possibly the most organized person that I've every met in my entire life. You can ask her anything about anything that's happened in the last few years, and she'll know exactly where to go get it or what they've done to work on, and it's amazing."

Cotten's letter of nomination detailed Walther's work not only in Faculty Senate but the work she did in her college while she was Faculty Senate President-Elect, Faculty Senate President and Past President, continuing to serve as Program Director of both the Graduate Psychology and Graduate Behavioral Sciences programs.

Despite missing the Service Award in 2024, Walther was honored with the Improving the Academy Award in 2025 at the end of her three years of Faculty Senate service and prior to stepping into the associate dean's position.

"Yes, she's outstanding," Cotten said. "I fully suspect she'll win all three of them (Distinguished Teaching, Distinguished Research and Distinguished Service Awards) before she leaves the university here, if we keep her long enough.

"Whoever is working with her, she makes them look better, and then often doesn't get the credit for it," Cotten said. "That's her chief thing: She makes other people look good."

Dr. Christal Seahorn, associate professor of Writing and Digital Rhetoric, has worked with Walther on research and in the Women and Gender Studies program. She describes Walther as generous with her knowledge, super reliable and easy to approach.

"She's someone that I know if I ask her to do something, it's going to get done," Seahorn said. "We have no idea how she gets as much done as she gets done."

Reliability.

For Walther, it's just a matter of a good Midwestern background with a Texas flair.

"Growing up, my sister and I worked retail most school breaks, especially during summer vacation, when we weren't up with the grandparents," Walther said. "It instills a lot of hard work, but also that kind of balance of there are multiple things that have to be handled at a given time."

Originally in broadcasting, Walther's father brought the family from Madison, Wisconsin, to Dallas, Texas, to become programming director at a station in Dallas. When Walther and her twin sister were about 4 or 5 years old, their father opened his own business, a hobby shop, which instilled in her hard work and the ability to handle multiple crises at once—pluses for a faculty member and an associate dean.

"It is also that sense of responsibility and this is how you're contributing," Walther said.

Back at her grandparents' small farming community in Wisconsin, there was also a focus on giving back to the community that shaped Walther's personality.

"That was the family I grew up in was this community of care," Walther said, "this needing to make sure others are taken care of because we were taken care of, and so I think that drives a lot of it is this idea of when I became associate dean how this was an opportunity to move into a position to continue that opportunity for care, making sure folks are getting the support and the resources they need to do their day-to-day job and feel like they're valued at the institution."

Walther had this experience as an undergraduate student at Texas Tech University as part of the Honors Program. Dr. Erin Hardin and Dr. Jim Clopton were faculty members she recalls not only by name but by the impact they had on her future life as a faculty member.

"Seeing somebody who could prioritize their teaching, prioritize their students and still be this really renowned scholar was very influential," Walther said.

Getting involved as a peer mentor and doing research at Texas Tech also showed her a different path than as a clinician.

"I was like, 'Oh, I really like this way more than the idea of seeing clients,'" Walther said.

After Texas Tech, it was on to the University of Pittsburgh for a master's degree in psychology and a PhD in developmental psychology. UHCL was her first position out of her doctoral program, and it has been the university where she has "grown up."

"One of the draws of coming to UHCL is that fact that I could balance being a professor and all that is entailed with being a parent," Walther said. "If I was going to have a family, I wanted to make sure I got that time."

Now, when she isn't on campus, you will likely find Walther playing board games with her husband Alex and their daughter Elise. You may also find her returning emails by the pool at Elise's practice.

"I have boundaries. I take personal time. I do those things," she said. "But it's that wanting to be supportive of your people. If they are reaching out, and it is a time-sensitive thing, I know it's cutting into my personal time, but you need that response. You need this so you can do the parts of your job or to reassure a student that we can manage this."

By statistical definition from the website SimplyPsychology.org, Walther is both reliable and valid—consistent and accurate. And how could UHCL ask for anything more?