LEAD MENTOR DEVELOP
Lead Mentor Develop was established out of grant work to support mid-career faculty members to excel. We believe work should be fun and formalized our decade long collaboration to help others be successful mentors and leaders. We consult with businesses, non-profits, and higher education institutions in the areas of leadership development, training & development, and mentor training, program development, and assessment.
Our Team
Laura Lunsford
Laura Lunsford is an expert in mentoring and leadership. A U.S. Fulbright Scholar(Germany), she has written over 50 peer-reviewed articles, case studies and chapters on leadership and mentorship. She wrote the definitive The Mentor’s Guide: Five steps to build a successful mentor program, now in its second edition. She co-edited the Sage Handbook of Mentoring, and co-authored Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges. In addition, numerous agencies have funded her work, including the Institution for Decision Sciences, the Luce Foundation, the NC Collaborative, the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education. Laura received the International Mentoring Association’s Hope dissertation award and is an IMA endorsed mentoring consultant.
Fun and engaging, she consults with organizations on effective mentoring and coaching. She has been a tenured professor at the University of Arizona and at Campbell University. Laura has held numerous academic leadership roles, including director positions at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, NC State’s Park Scholarships, and UNC-Wilmington’s Swain Center for Executive Education as well as assistant dean at Campbell University. She is a social scientist at the U.S. National Science Foundation.
Laura enjoys her Japanese Zen Garden, cycling, kayaking, and karate (and holds a black belt in Shoto kan) in addition to eating her husband’s cooking. A Rotarian, she volunteers with the American Red Cross.
Vicki Baker
Recognized as a “Top 100 Visionary” in Education by the Global Forum for Education and Learning (2020-2021) and a “Top 10 Visionary in Education in 2023” by CioLook Magazine, Vicki is at the forefront of innovation and strategy in faculty and leadership development. A faculty member and Fulbright Specialist Alumna (Utrecht, Netherlands), Vicki’s goal is to help faculty members, colleges, and universities thrive. She is the E. Maynard Aris Endowed Professor in Economics and Management at Albion College, where she serves as Chair of the Economics & Management Department. Vicki was selected as an ACE Fellow (2023-2024) and will spend the spring 2024 semester at Hope College.
Prior to joining the academy as a faculty member, Vicki worked at Harvard Business School (Executive Education) and AK Steel Corporation. She earned her PhD (Higher Education) and MS (Management & Organization) from Penn State University, MBA from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, and BS from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She holds a certificate in Human Resource Management (Villanova University) and is a Certified Professional in HR through the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).
Vicki is the author of Charting Your Path to Full: A Guide for Women Associate Professors, lead editor of Success After Tenure: Supporting Mid-Career Faculty, and lead co-author of Developing Faculty in Liberal Arts Colleges. Her recent book, Managing Your Academic Career: A Guide to Re-envision Mid-Career (Routledge/Taylor & Francis) and New Directions in Higher Education volume, Bridging the Research-Practice Nexus: Resources, Tools, and Strategies to Navigate Mid-Career in the Academy (Wiley) are now in print. She is editor of A Toolkit for Mid-Career: Cultivating Career Advancement which will be in print spring 2024 (Routledge/Taylor & Francis). She has written over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, invited opinion pieces for higher education news media outlets, case studies and blogs on the topics of faculty and leadership development and higher education.
Vicki’s work has been featured in national/international media outlets including WalletHub, Times Higher Education, Hechinger Report, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, USA Today, New York Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Huffington Post. She regularly consults with industry and higher education institutions on the topics of leadership, faculty development, change management, and mentoring. Vicki has conducted workshops, scholarly presentations, and keynote addresses at professional associations including the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the Council for the Advancement of Higher Education Programs, the American Educational Research Association, and the Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD).
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