Sharon Valente, PhD, MBA

Dr. Valente provides Keller Partners with an established record of excellence in teaching and scholarly productivity. She works with Keller Partners’ higher education clients to address questions about pedagogy and assessments, foster collaborative projects, and identify and pursue funding opportunities in applied research to support the professional development of faculty. Dr. Valente prepares logic models, assesses team strengths and weaknesses, and prepares literature reviews in support of the proposal. The scholarship of teaching and learning is one of her main areas of research.

Dr. Valente is currently working with the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) on an NCES grant to present workshops on how to use IPEDS data to enhance student learning through her role as Director of Conference Special Programs for Eastern Educational Research Association (EERA). At Marymount California University (MCU), Sharon was the chief liaison with MCU’s and Keller Partners’ professionals as they worked together to identify grant opportunities such as the Office of Postsecondary Education’s TRIO Student Support Services program or the First in the World grants.

Dr. Valente holds the rank of full professor with a Ph.D. in Research Methods and Finance from The University of Akron (Akron, Ohio) and a Master of Business Administration (Economics) from Seattle University (Seattle, Washington). Her focus is on student success and her 2007 presidential address at Mid-Western Educational Research Association (MWERA), which was titled “The Heart of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Lifelong Mentoring,” spoke to the importance of mentoring of faculty and students as a necessary prerequisite to helping students succeed.