Katie Easley

Prior to joining the Gardner Institute, Katie served as Director of Student Success at Western Michigan University. There, she led a comprehensive portfolio of initiatives focused on improving academic outcomes, including Gateway Course Redesign, Peer Academic Success Coaching, the Peer Navigator Program, and the Learning Assistant Program. She played a key role in advancing institutional efforts to redesign courses, implement high-impact practices, and scale student support strategies that contributed to improved retention and achievement. She worked collaboratively with faculty and staff to embed data-informed, student-centered approaches across the institution, resulting in measurable gains in student persistence, course success rates, and overall retention.

Katie’s scholarship and professional interests include student success strategy, peer education, curriculum transformation, and institutional approaches to retention and completion. She is particularly interested in developing holistic, scalable models of support that respond to the diverse needs of today’s learners and in helping institutions translate research into sustained, systemic change.

 

She holds a Master of Arts in Higher Education Leadership from Western Michigan University, as well as undergraduate degrees in English and Spanish Secondary Education. Katie’s work is grounded in the belief that higher education should be a powerful engine of equality, possibility, and transformation. She is committed to advancing systems that are intentional, evidence-informed, and focused on ensuring that every student not only has access to higher education, but a genuine opportunity to thrive.

 

Katie lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with her husband and their two children. Her experiences as a parent and community member inform her commitment to higher education and strengthen her dedication to advancing student success and opportunity.