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Dr. Eric Mayes

Email or 920-832-7451

Dr. Eric Mayes serves as the Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Professor of Education at Lawrence University. Before joining Lawrence University, he served as the founding executive director of the Arkansas Academy (Center) for Educational Equity and an Associate Professor in the College of Education and Health Professions at the University of Arkansas. His research focuses on examining the mediating role of culture on cognition and learning, with particular interest on the impact that culturally responsive pedagogy and assessments have on academic and life outcomes for linguistically and culturally diverse students and communities.

Prior, Dr. Mayes served on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University working at the nexus of leadership development, social entrepreneurship, and educational equity; designing and implementing an innovative online Doctor of Education program that focused on addressing some of the most intractable problems of practice in education.

As a former national director at the Children’s Defense Fund, Dr. Mayes led national initiatives, including program evaluation, growth strategy, and overseeing the CDF Freedom Schools program. Dr. Mayes  served as a director at the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute and inaugural faculty fellow in the Eugene Applebaum Chair in Community Engagement while at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.

Earlier in his career, Dr. Mayes also worked as a director at the U.S. Dream Academy and as an elementary and middle school building administrator in Washington, DC. Prior, Dr. Mayes served as a high school teacher and football coach in Detroit, Michigan.

He holds a post-doctorate Master’s Degree in Education Policy and Management from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Howard University, and both a Master’s Degree in Educational Technology and a Bachelors from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A former college athlete, Dr. Mayes advanced from a walk-on to Co-Captain of the 1997 University of Michigan National Championship Football Team.

Kristin L. McKinley, M.S.

Mursell House - Room 204

Email or 920-832-6532

Kristin originally joined Lawrence in 2010 to assist with the evaluation of a federal grant for campus suicide prevention and was hired permanently in 2011 as a research associate. In 2012 she was promoted to associate director and in 2015 was named director of research administration. She serves on the President's Committee for Accreditation and Assessment, President's Committee for Student Success, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Grant Implementation Task Force. She is a consultant for President's Committee on Diversity Affairs. Kristin is a nationally recognized institutional researcher and grant evaluator with more than 10 years of experience in grant and program evaluation, institutional research, and higher education. 

Kristin actively contributes to the field of institutional research. She was one of three national recipients of the Julia M. Duckwall Professional Development Scholarship, awarded by the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) in 2014. She was invited to serve a two-year term as a member of the AIR Forum Strategy Committee starting in September 2017. There were eight members on the committee, with only one other individual coming from a liberal arts college. Kristin served as an eAIR Tech Tips Contributor, a member of the Forum Advisory Committee, and peer reviewer for the 2017-18 academic year. She was elected by membership to serve a two-year term on the AIR Nominations and Elections Committee (NEC) beginning in May 2019. Kristin was also elected to serve a one-year term on the Higher Education Data Sharing (HEDS) Consortium Board beginning in June 2019 and was re-elected to a three-year term in June 2020. 

In her free time, Kristin is active in the community advocating for increased awareness of mental health and suicide prevention. She has served as a member of the Outagamie Child Death Review Team since 2013 and suggested the addition of Recommendation 6 to the 2013 Suicide Prevention Recommendations. Kristin became a certified QPR Gatekeeper Instructor in 2010 and has trained over 325 people in suicide prevention. 

Kristin earned her Bachelor of Science in biology and psychology from Mount Mercy College and holds a Master of Science, with specialization in clinical psychology, from Augusta State University.