Greetings!
I believe in creating welcoming, energetic, and comfortable environments that foster measured growth and a healthy lifestyle for everyone within our work lives.
When faced with a challenge in the organization, we often jump to the newest product for a miracle cure. For meaningful change, however, there are more effective and impactful activities than changing team members or buying a new data product.
I can help you review your existing assets in people, data, and process in order to map positive change.
Short Biography
Dr. Catherine Robert is a consultant and writer living in Chicago, Illinois. She has served in leadership roles in higher education, most recently as Interim Associate Provost for Institutional Effectiveness at Loyola University Chicago. As an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at UTA, she was Co-Director of both the Center for Educational Research, Policy, and Practice and the doctoral program.
She specializes in human resource topics including employee misconduct, employee turnover, process design, and policy implementation. Prior to completing doctoral work, Dr. Robert served as a teacher, analyst, and administrator at campus, district, and regional levels, most recently as executive director of human resources in a school district.
Dr. Robert has consulted on legal and practical implications of policy design in both higher education and K-12 contexts, in addition to performing forensic analysis of policy and procedure application for future operational improvement. Her workshops include process mapping for beginners, guided strategic planning for interdisciplinary teams, and process and data mapping design for intervention planning.
EXPERIENCE
I’ve worked in many different roles within the interlinking worlds of data, education, and policy and process.
Teaching and Learning
Teacher
Associate Professor
Community Education Director
Data
Accountant
Education Specialist
Sr Director, Institutional Research
Policy and Process
Administrative Registrar
Exec Director, Human Resources
Expert Witness
In my career explorations, I have discovered the value of working with a good team toward a shared purpose. Each individual has their own needs, but uniting behind a common goal breeds a culture of respect for each other and intention in our work. Some of my favorite teamwork examples include:
- My drama classes that produced and performed plays for their friends and families.
- My tennis team that I coached as 7th grade beginners who went on to win state in high school.
- My Community Education team that doubled the availability of high quality after school care in our district and fund-raised for scholarships for students to attend.
- My HR department that rallied through high growth for several years, hiring for new schools and switching to online hiring software throughout the growth.
- UTA doctoral cohorts 11-17 who graduated and serve as education leaders in roles such as superintendents, directors, policy analysts, education consultants, higher education administrators, and more.
- Our team of researchers working to define and describe the phenomenon of Educator Sexual Misconduct (ESM). We built the first comprehensive database of educator misconduct in Texas. Our research led to a provision in Texas Senate Bill 7 (2017) that requires school districts to have an electronic communications policy governing which employees may communicate with students, over what forms of media, and the appropriate times for that communication. We also revealed the varying definitions of ESM across the country with a 50-state review of ESM laws.
- My team at the region service center in Austin that helped me create the Leaver Team Workshop, designed to foster teamwork for early identification of potential student dropouts, providing interventions, and improving student data system management.
FREE TIME
I enjoy exploring the Chicago area with my husband, David, cooking, junk journaling, and spending time at the library. I like weird art films, unique and obscure cultural events, minor or amateur leagues, and farmers markets.
I have one daughter, Ashley, who served as a Judge Advocate in the USMC and now works as an Assistant United States Attorney.
