PhD, 2012 Stephanie Foster is Director of Assessment in the Office of Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness at Colorado State University. Dr. Foster supports the CSU community to create and use meaningful strategies for understanding student learning from the classroom to the educational program level and to the institution as a whole. Dr. Foster brings expertise in assessment and evaluation, especially in general education and high-impact practices such as undergraduate research, service-learning, and Honors education. Stephanie was the Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellow for 2009-10. She was attracted to UGA by the opportunity to work with Dr. Sheila Slaughter because "she is an accomplished scholar who would give me strong guidance," and also by the interdisciplinary nature of the IHE curriculum "which offers the opportunity to pull together different ideas and to respond to problems in higher education in innovative ways." Stephanie's dissertation, "Mid-Level Administrative-Professional Staff in an American Research University: Expertise, Gender, and Changing Patterns of Professional Labor," explored the primary roles and activities of mid-level administrators and professionals in the context of the contemporary American research university, with attention to the gendered nature of the category. Her scholarly interests include faculty and administrative labor, the development of post-secondary curriculum, gender in higher education, and qualitative research methods.
