Lane Busby McLelland is the director of the Crossroads Civic Engagement Center in the Division of Community Affairs at The University of Alabama (UA). She has worked for over 30 years, both inside and outside of higher education, to foster and develop individual and community capacity for working across social, religious, and political differences. Before joining Crossroads in 2013, McLelland served as the assistant director in UA’s New College, where she taught courses in ethics and principles of deliberative democracy. While there, she also coordinated New College’s Civic Engagement and Leadership Minor and designed its community-based research internship program in rural Walker County, Alabama. Before returning to work in academia in 1999, she served as a United Methodist minister in the North Alabama Conference.
McLelland holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Studies from The University of Alabama. Additionally, she received an MA in Ethics and a Master of Divinity degree from Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, and a BA in International Studies and Conflict Management from UA’s Interdisciplinary Studies Program in New College. Her classes and research currently focus on moral development and issues of free speech in higher education, as well as the design and implementation of campus and community models for civic learning and democratic engagement.
