Deb Arthur is a Professor in the University Studies program. She’s been at PSU for 23 years. Prior to coming to PSU, Deb was a criminal defense and juvenile attorney in Portland. Her focus was on representing juveniles in adult criminal court under measure 11.
While at PSU, Deb has formed multiple long-standing community partnerships, including with the Department of community justice, juvenile services division. Her juvenile justice class, which she developed and taught for 15 years, partnered with youth in juvenile detention, working on academic and creative projects. In fact, her course won a “volunteer of the year” award from Multnomah County.
The professional work that she is most proud of is her development of the higher education in prison program at Portland State University, offering a full bachelors degree to incarcerated women. Deb worked tirelessly with a small group of incarcerated women, with Oregon legislators, and with DOC and PSU administration, to make this reality. She also wrote numerous grants and brought in over $3 million to PSU to fund this program. She has been recognized statewide and nationally for this work.
Deb is excited to be working with the union for fairness for all employees and to make sure that peoples hard work is valued and recognized.
Deb is married and has two great kids, 18 and 21, +2 dogs and a cat.