Stephanie is the Vice President for Teaching, Learning, and Evidence-Based Practices. Prior to joining the Institute staff in August 2017, Stephanie was the founding director of the Master of Science in First-Year Studies, professor of education in the Department of First-Year and Transition Studies, and faculty fellow for High-Impact Practices at Kennesaw State University (KSU). Before joining the faculty at KSU, Stephanie served as the founding Director of the Academic Success Center and First-Year Experience at the University of South Carolina Aiken, and was the Associate Director for Student Orientation and Family Programs at Stony Brook University.

Her scholarship and consultative work span a variety of aspects of student development and transition, including: the role of first-year seminars and experiential pedagogy on student engagement in the early college experience, the community college transfer student transition, self-authorship development, engagement and learning in online environments, faculty development, metacognitive teaching and learning approaches, and high-impact educational practices. Stephanie is a recipient of the McGraw-Hill Excellence in Teaching First-Year Seminars award, and a past recipient of the NODA Outstanding Research Award for her research on the effects of first-year seminar participation on the experience of students in the early college experience. Stephanie routinely serves as a faculty member for the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition's Institute on Developing and Sustaining First-Year Seminars and developed and has taught the online course, Fostering First-Year Student Success for the Center since 2010.

Stephanie earned her Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in Educational Administration-Higher Education and has served as a Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Lead Evaluator for several institutions during their reaffirmation process through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS-COC), and Stephanie has participated in the Foundations of Excellence Process for both first-year and transfer students.

To contact Stephanie, please email her at Foote@jngi.org or call 828-449-8801.