Seth Pollack

Dr. Seth Pollack is Professor of Service Learning, and the founding faculty director of the Service Learning Institute at California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB). CSUMB is recognized as a national leader in the field of service learning and civic engagement, and is the only two-time recipient of the prestigious White House President’s Award for Community Service in Higher Education (2006, 2010).

For the past 22 years, Seth has provided overall leadership for the Service Learning Institute at CSUMB. In 2005, he received the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service Learning, recognized as the nation’s outstanding faculty in the field of community service and civic engagement. The award recognizes his contributions to institutionalizing service learning in higher education, and his work in integrating issues of diversity and social justice as a core component of service learning courses.

Seth comes to his work in civic engagement after a decade working in grassroots rural development in West Africa, South Asia and Central America. In 2008-09, he served as a Fulbright Scholar in Cape Town, South Africa, where he worked with the University of Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape to strengthen their service learning and community engagement. In 2017-18, he was a European Union Fulbright-Schuman Scholar, and conducted research and service learning workshops at the University of Brighton, UK; and, University of Bologna, Italy.

Seth earned his PhD in International Development Education from Stanford University and his MA in Organizational Sociology, also from Stanford. His BA is in International Affairs from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Seth grew up in Boulder, Colorado, and is an avid cyclist, outdoors enthusiast and traveler. He speaks German, French, Bamanankan and some Hebrew, and has a deep passion for world music.