Our team

About

Katherine (Katie) Wildman is a specialist in innovating organizations through careful listening, capacity building, and finding synergy and vision to move forward. In her role as vice chancellor for student life, Wildman, with a team of student life experts, is developing and enhancing a robust student support services program and a local student life culture that allows students to learn in their context. She believes in cultivating a strong sense of community for students, as well as faculty and staff, as a central component of experiential and transformative learning experiences.

With hybrid work experience in both student affairs and academic affairs, Wildman offers a holistic view of the student experience both in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to serving as dean of students and other senior cabinet roles around the world, she has taught undergraduate, graduate, and professional development classes and experiential learning in more than 45 countries. She has served three full voyages with the Institute of Shipboard Education and more than 15 partial voyages in various roles, all while sailing around the world and living side-by-side with students, faculty, staff, and their families. Additionally, she has facilitated millions of dollars in undergraduate research opportunities for students, while conducting her own research for publications and presentations. Wildman has extensive experience in international higher and tertiary education consulting, traveling to over 100 countries with extended residency spent in North America, Europe, and Asia.  

Wildman received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Southern Methodist University where she studied advertising and art history. She also has a master’s degree in counseling from Clemson University and a PhD from the University of Iowa in educational policy and leadership studies. Previously she has worked at the Qatar Foundation, Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar, Black Hills State University, Beloit College, Appalachian State University, the University of Alaska-Anchorage, Denmark’s International Study Abroad Program, and many other institutions in her international consulting business, The Global Education Firm. 

She enjoys international and domestic traveling, creative arts, sailing and maritime life, sports, and spending time with her family; and is often found eating with students in the dining hall, having coffee with faculty and staff, or bringing her daughter to an evening program on campus!