Cristi Eschler-Freudenrich brings more than 20 years’ experience in business-to-consumer marketing, advertising and sales to ORU. Her sales experience spans media and national brands including IBM and Chobani Greek yogurt. She has developed products and created brand campaigns for such clients as McDonald’s, 7-Eleven Stores, Dr Pepper/7-Up, Sunkist Growers, Mercy Health Center, and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.
Freudenrich advises ORU’s National Student Advertising Competition team. In 2018, the team finished 7th place nationally among more than 150 participating universities in the American Advertising Federation’s national collegiate competition. In 2021, the team earned the Adobe Judges’ Award for Best Strategy; and in 2022, the ORU team finished second place regionally for its work with Meta’s Quest 2 virtual reality headset.
As a professor, Dr. Freudenrich focuses her teaching philosophy on excellence. She believes excellence is a reflection of our pursuit in Christ as disciples. For students, this means she helps them identify and develop their God-given talents and cultivate the best of these through collaboration, discovery, field work, and internships.
Dr. Freudenrich’s dissertation work explores Oral Roberts’ broadcast TV ministry and
sermon rhetoric within the earliest days of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The
doctoral research earned the Broadcast Education Association's National Kenneth Harwood
Outstanding Dissertation Award (2020). She has presented at the University of South
Carolina (2016) and more recently in the Civil Rights track at the John Hope Franklin
National Symposium (2019). In 2021, she authored a Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic
Media article on Oral Roberts and the Battle to Access National Network Television.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08838151.2021.1950155?journalCode=hbem20
Freudenrich has won multiple awards for her professional work as well including American Advertising Federation Addy Awards, International Association of Business Communicators’ Gold Quill, and the American Marketing Association’s Marketer of the Year. In 2019, she was awarded ORU's College of Arts & Cultural Studies' Faculty Service Award and in 2020 recognized as the Communication & Media Department's Outstanding Scholar.
Eschler-Freudenrich earned her B.S., Oklahoma State University; M.S., Oklahoma State University; and Ph.D. from Regent University. She currently serves as Associate Professor and Chair in the School of Communication & Public Affairs, supporting students and faculty across a wide set of majors including Communication, Media, Political Science, International Relations, International Development, Global Studies, and Leadership Studies. The school is home to graduate programs including the master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and the newly launched doctorate in Strategic Leadership (fall 2022).