New Featured Educator of the Month

October Featured Educator

Lauren Copeland, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Fashion Design & Merchandising, Kent Campus

Dr. Copeland has done a great deal of work within her Fundamentals class (required by all fashion students) to create a series of self-directed efficacy building activities to help students refine what they want to do in the fashion industry. Rather than just lecturing to students about the parts and pieces of the industry, Lauren helps students understand what they might want to more specifically work towards. It reinforces the department’s focus on diversifying the types of careers that are possible and encouraging students to challenge themselves. In a class of nearly 300 students in a semester, Lauren has created a sense of community and belonging amongst students. Colleague Noel Palomo-Lovinski states “I do believe that she is a major reason that we have increased retention rates in our first year students!”