Crystal Fashant

Recent and upcoming courses

Fall 2024

• MPNA 695: Capstone in Community Oriented Management
• MPNA 600: Practical Research for Public Administration and Non-profit Management

Spring 2025

• MPNA 695: Capstone in Community Oriented Management
• NPM 600: Nonprofit Governance and Management

Biography

Dr. Crystal Saric Fashant is an associate professor in the Department of Public and Nonprofit Leadership. She began teaching at Metropolitan State University in 2013, creating an environmental sustainability course in the MPNA program, and later teaching Management Principles and Practices for undergraduate business students. Since 2017, she has co-directed the Master of Public and Nonprofit Administration Program and teaches graduate-level research methods (MPNA 600), nonprofit governance and management (NPM 600), nonprofit finance (NPM 675), and the capstone course (MPNA 695).

Dr. Fashant earned a bachelor of psychology and sociology from Castleton University in Vermont; a Master of Public and Nonprofit Administration degree from Metropolitan State University in 2011, and a doctorate in Business Administration in 2017. She serves as secretary of the Board of Directors for Total Health Africa, president of the Board of Trustees at Merrick, Inc., and on the Advisory Board at The Diversity Institute.

Dr. Fashant's career in the nonprofit sector spans nearly 20 years, including at Fairview Health Services leading corporate-level strategies for environmental sustainability including recycling, reuse, and waste reduction; energy reduction; climate impact; sustainable supply chains, and responsible medical mission donations. Her team received a Minnesota Governor’s Award for Pollution Prevention in 2011 and the Becker’s Hospital Review “50 Greenest Hospitals” designation in 2013. She developed University of Minnesota Technical Assistance Program (MnTAP) healthcare sustainability web resources, and has been a sustainability consultant at Hennepin Healthcare since 2015. She is an annual awards reviewer for the national healthcare sustainability consortium, Practice Greenhealth.

Dr. Fashant's research interests include the convergence between social entrepreneurship and nonprofit organizations as well as environmental sustainability and social justice issues. Her research has been featured in the Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs; Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal; the Twin Cities Medical Journal; Midwest Academy of Management; Management & Organizational Behavior Teaching Society; Practice Greenhealth’s ‘Greenhealth Academy;’ Journal of Organizational Psychology; and Community Indicators Consortium. She is passionate about student engagement through community service and has served on several university committees/councils. She is deeply committed to the principles of culturally inclusive pedagogy, completing both the Institute for Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, and Anti-Racist Pedagogy Across the Curriculum.