YWCA Women of Achievement awards: Kristine Hoover poised to lead Gonzaga’s hate studies center

The list of achievements that Kristine Hoover has amassed in her time at Gonzaga University is lengthy.

In addition to her work as a professor and chair of the Organizations Leadership Program, she has been leading the Gonzaga University Institute for Hate Studies for the past seven years. Her work has earned her the 2024 YWCA Women of Achievement Carl Maxey Racial and Social Justice Award. Raymond Reyes, Gonzaga’s associate vice president for cultural initiatives, nominated Hoover and described her as a practical visionary.

“Like Halley’s Comet, it is truly as rare a moment in the leadership movements of a community to witness someone like Kristine Hoover rise to the occasion and answer the call to organize, collaborate and convene to address racial/social justice, be on fire about community enhancement or have a creative, restless motivation to innovation educational systems,” he said. “She likes to choreograph community genius in a constructive way. She’s like a maestro. She knows how to choreograph individual gifts.”

Hoover is always trying to improve the quality of life of others, Reyes added.

“She gets things done,” he said. “She always keeps her foot on the pedal. She’ll hold you accountable in the nicest way.”

Hoover grew up in Ohio, moving often but staying within the state’s borders.

“I got to know people of all sorts of backgrounds,” she said. “We are Buckeyes from the beginning.”

At first she didn’t go far from home. She went to the University of Cincinnati to earn a degree in architecture, with a dream of bringing people together with spaces.

Once out of college, she began working in a warehouse district in the area of historical renovation.

“I had a deep concern for urban sprawl,” she said.

After a few years, she decided to go back to school and earn her master’s in business administration and a master of organizational development from Bowling Green State University, where she also earned a PhD in Leadership Studies.

Though she never became an architect, Hoover said she doesn’t have regrets.

“I feel it was a tremendous foundation for me and what I do,” she said. “Architecture gave me an incredible opportunity to not be afraid of a blank page.”

She arrived in Spokane in 2009 to work as a professor in Gonzaga’s School of Leadership Studies. She became the chair of the Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program last fall. She’s currently on sabbatical, doing research related to leadership and hate studies. Her goal is to document the leadership in our community and how people stand together to fight for justice.

She’s also working on a documentary about Carla Peperzak, a local resident who was a Dutch resistance fighter during World War II, saving numerous people from the Holocaust. She speaks often at local schools about her experience and recently had a Spokane middle school named in her honor.

“She keeps telling her story,” Hoover said. “She is 100 years old and she continues to tell her story to local school children.”

Hoover helped create the Diana Gissel Digital Photo Archive at Gonzaga’s Foley Library. Gissel was a photographer who documented the fall of the Aryan Nations compound and the rise of the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. She also helped arrange the donation of files belonging to Bill Morlin, a former Spokesman-Review reporter who wrote about white supremacy groups for decades and later worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center to spotlight hate groups.

Hoover said a pivotal moment for her came in 2010, when members of the Westboro Baptist Church came to Gonzaga’s campus to protest. The church, which is largely one extended family, travels the country arranging protests targeting members of the LGBTQ+ community, soldiers and others. She saw students gather to counterprotest and Gonzaga President Thayne McCulloh stand with the students.

“I have been involved in hate studies ever since,” she said. “Gonzaga is actually recognized for founding the field of hate studies.”

Gonzaga’s hate studies center was founded by Reyes and Bob Bartlett, among others, in 1997.

“All of this work is done to study the impact of hate crimes, but we also want to prevent it in the future,” Hoover said.

Reyes, who plans to retire this year, said he’s confident the Center is in good hands with Hoover.

“She’ll keep oxygen on the fire,” he said.

Hoover said she was honored to be recognized for her work and doubly honored to win an award named for Carl Maxey, a Spokane attorney and civil rights leader.

“Carl Maxey is larger than life in our community,” she said. “I am so hopeful that in some way this can help people learn about his life and legacy.”