Dr. Basma Ibrahim DeVries

Basma Ibrahim DeVries, PhD, is professor of Communication Studies at Concordia University, St. Paul, Minn., where she specializes in teaching graduate and undergraduate intercultural, interpersonal, persuasion, and theory and research communication courses, facilitating campus-wide intercultural/diversity sessions, and integrating service-learning into the curriculum.

Basma trains and consults on intercultural topics with corporate, educational and community clients and facilitates workshops, simulation activities and sessions on a variety of communication topics. She enjoys working with global and diverse teams and assisting them in their intercultural communication competence development and diversity and inclusion goals. Most recently, she was invited to teach at the Intercultural Communication and Collaboration Forum at Education City in Doha, Qatar, in April 2019. She is a certified administrator of the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), a certified facilitator and facilitator trainer of the Cultural Detective, and a facilitator of the Intercultural Conflict Styles Inventory and Personal Leadership Method.

She has won faculty development grants for her work every year for the past 15 years and, in 2007, was the recipient of the annual Concordia University Faculty Award for Service Learning. Basma is also a faculty member at the Summer Institute in Intercultural Communication in Portland, Ore., and teaches in the Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program at St. Catherine University.

Basma is Egyptian-American and has spent much time traveling and living in Egypt, Europe and the USA, and leading annual student travel courses and service-learning groups to Egypt and Mexico, among other countries. During 2007, she was the Intercultural Learning Circle Coordinator (department chair) and faculty member aboard the inaugural semester-long voyage of The Scholar Ship, where she was responsible for overseeing inclusion efforts and the intercultural competence development of students, staff and faculty from 50 countries on an ocean-going university. Basma has worked in countries on six continents and lived in countries on three continents—plus the ocean!

Basma’s publications include: co-authored book “Communication Highwire: Leveraging the Power of Diverse Communication Styles” (Intercultural Press); “Cultural Detective: EGYPT,” part of the web-based intercultural learning series Cultural Detective (www.culturaldetective.com); in addition to book chapters and journal articles. She also authored a series of intercultural competence tools for English language and literacy instructors produced for the Minnesota Literacy Council.

She is a founding board member and past vice president of GiGi’s Playhouse–Twin Cities Down Syndrome Achievement Center and has a particular interest in expanding her work to include “differ-ability” communities. She continues to serve as a program leader and volunteer at GiGi’s Playhouse. Basma served on the national board of SIETAR-USA (Society for Intercultural Education, Training, and Research) and chaired several SIETAR-USA Committees. Basma is founder and coordinator of SIETAR-Minnesota and on the board of the Egyptian American Society.

Basma’s experience also includes relocation training, pre-departure/re-entry training for international assignments, intercultural team-building, leveraging communication styles training, adapting material for different learning styles, and utilizing various media delivery methods. She has also worked with immigrant communities and conducts seminars for local immigrant groups on understanding U.S. American culture.

She earned her PhD from the University of Minnesota in communication studies, her MA from the University of Wisconsin, and her BA in psychology and communication studies from Gustavus Adolphus College. Basma sees herself as a traveler, writer, photographer, rule-breaker, dreamer, artist, storyteller, activist, environmentalist and optimist. Her happiest moments often involve adventures with her husband, Jon, two sons and extended family.