05/26/2021

Mortar Board Names Dr. Kirsten Fox its New Executive Director

She will begin July 6, 2021

National President Gail Harrison Corvette announced that, after a vigorous nationwide search, Kirsten F. Fox, Ph.D. has been named executive director of Mortar Board National College Senior Honor Society. Fox, who was initiated into Mortar Board at The Ohio State University, has built an extensive network in the higher education community, having directed campus engagement for Denison University’s Knowlton Center for Career Exploration and the Undergraduate Leadership andEngagement Office for The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.

Currently, Fox is director of The Placement Exchange, a partnership between ACUHO-I: Association of College andUniversity Housing Officers International and NASPA: Student Affairs Educators in Higher Education based in Columbus, Ohio. She has also held positions of senior program director for the Ohio Campus Compact; early in her career, she excelled in positions at the University of Maryland and George Washington University.

“In its 103 year, Mortar Board has hired an executive director with terrific credentials and a great track record of performance in career development, the senior year experience and capstone programs," Corvette said. "As we move into a post-COVID world and explore the ever-increasing significance that Mortar Board can have on campuses today, the National Council is eager to benefit from Dr. Fox’s talents and help Mortar Board develop through her leadership.”

“It is an honor to serve an organization that has shaped me both personally and professionally," Fox said. "We have the opportunity to leverage Mortar Board’s traditions of scholarship, leadership, service and equity to advance theSociety in new and exciting ways. Success cannot be achieved without empowering others, and I look forward to working closely with national leaders, staff and all collegiate and alumni members.”

Fox is published in 2018’s “Leadership Development for Career Readiness in University Settings,” a special issue of NewDirections in Student Leadership and has co-authored “Service Matters: Reviewing Gender Implications” in Concept & Connections in 2008 and “Moving Out and Moving On” in the Mortar Board Forum in 2007. She is known for her national presentations on career exploration, negotiation, networking, navigating the job search process, service-learning, civic engagement and women’s leadership.

Fox holds a Ph.D. in counseling and personnel services from the University of Maryland where she also was coordinator of theSenior Year Experience in the Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs. Her dissertation research focused onunderstanding the college to post-college transition. While a doctoral student, Fox received the Mortar Board National Foundation’s Barbara Cook Fellowship as well as the University of Maryland’s McEwen Research Grant. In 2012, Fox’s dissertation won NASPA’s Melvene D. Hardee Dissertation of the Year. She earned the M.Ed. in higher education and student affairs administration at the University of Vermont and a Bachelor of Science with Distinction in human development and family science from The Ohio State University. She is a graduate of the National Association for Colleges andEmployers Management Leadership Institute.

Her volunteer service to higher education and her local community has been extensive. Fox was the chair of NASPA’s Center for Women Advisory Board from 2014 to 2018 and served as a mentor for the Candid Conversation Women’s MentorshipProgram. She is a certified Start Smart Facilitator for the American Association of University Women. She has been involved with various women’s philanthropy programs, works with high school students around college readiness, and has served as ayouth sport coach.

An active leader in her own collegiate chapter, Fox later became advisor to the Adele H. Stamp chapter of Mortar Board at the University of Maryland, for which she was awarded the Society’s Excellence in Advising Award, and to Mortar Board’s Cap and Gown chapter at Denison University. In 2017 Fox, along with her mother Past National President Dr. Mabel G. Freeman, established the Freeman and Fox Chapter Revitalization Fund in the Mortar Board National Foundation to supportimprovement in chapter operations. Fox lives in Granville, Ohio with her husband, Dr. William Fox, who serves as the dean of students at Denison University, and their two children.

Fox becomes the sixth executive director in the 51-year history of the Mortar Board National Office. She succeeds the retiring Jane A. Hamblin, J.D., CAE, COA (Purdue University, 1973), who has been the chief staff officer of the society since 2009. A transition between the two executives will take place after Fox begins her work with Mortar Board on July 6.