Christine Johnson McPhail, former president of Cypress College in California and past president of St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina, passed away on March 1. She was 80 years old.
Born in Tyler, Texas, Dr. McPhail earned her bachelor’s degree in social work and master’s degree in education and counseling from Fresno State University in California. Her early career included work as a social worker for Head Start, serving low-income families across California. Dr. McPhail then went on to hold counseling and administrative positions at Contra Costa College and the College of Alameda. In 1987, Dr. McPhail earned her doctorate in higher education from the University of Southern California, where her dissertation centered on academically underprepared students in California community colleges.
In 1995, Dr. McPhail was named the first woman and first African American president of Cypress College, a community college in Cypress, California. After stepping down from her presidency in 1998, Dr. McPhail founded the community college leadership doctoral program at Morgan State University in Baltimore. She also served as a professor of practice at the John E. Roueche Center for Community College Leadership at Kansas State University and was the president and CEO of the McPhail Group, LLC, a higher education consulting firm.
On February 24, 2021, Dr. McPhail became the thirteenth president of St. Augustine’s University, where she would serve until her retirement in December 2023. She succeeded her late husband, Irving Pressley McPhail, who passed away in October 2020 due to COVID-19 complications just months into his presidency at the university.
As a scholar, Dr. McPhail wrote extensively on leadership and higher education. She published several articles and books throughout her career, including Transformational Change in Community College: Becoming an Equity-Centered Institution (Routledge, 2021).