Jennifer Stephens

Dr. Jennifer H. Stephens is the associate vice president for communications and marketing at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, one of the nation’s top 100 public research universities. The institution has a total enrollment of more than 19,000 students and more than 200 majors.

Stephens guides strategies and programs for institutional branding, marketing, web and digital communications, internal and crisis communications, trademark licensing, alumni and development communications, social media and news media, advertising and public records requests. She serves as the University’s chief communications officer, and is a member of the University Council.

Stephens has more than two decades of communications and leadership experience in public higher education. She came to UL Lafayette from Georgia Gwinnett College in Lawrenceville, Ga., where she was deputy chief of staff to the college’s president. She served previously as GGC’s chief communications officer and as chief government relations officer. During her time there she provided leadership in strategy, change management, marketing and communications. Stephens was one of the key leaders supporting GGC’s rapid growth from 100 students to more than 13,000 students over the period of a decade. Prior to her role at GGC, Stephens was the chief communications officer at Georgia Perimeter College, serving 20,000 students through six metro-Atlanta campuses and online.

She is active in the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and also in the American Council on Education where she has served as the state chair for the ACE Women’s Network in Georgia. During the 2015-2016 academic year, she participated in the ACE Fellowship Program, a leadership development program that focuses on identifying and preparing the next generation of senior leadership for the nation’s colleges and universities. Her Fellowship year was hosted at Georgia State University. In 2014, she was selected to attend the Harvard University Institute for Management and Leadership in Education.

Stephens has a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Georgia’s Institute of Higher Education. She holds a master of divinity degree in biblical studies from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and bachelor’s degrees in psychology and in graphic design, both from Auburn University. She and her husband, Todd, have two daughters.