Dr. Hartley joins Avila from the University of La Verne in La Verne, California, where she has served in key senior roles, including Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, and most recently as Senior Executive Advisor in the Office of the President. In that capacity, she has provided strategic oversight for institution-wide initiatives, working closely with university leadership to advance major projects and strengthen academic and operational effectiveness.

She will conclude her service at La Verne before fully transitioning into her leadership role at 海角直播 in June 2026.

From 2020 to 2023, Dr. Hartley served as Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Seattle Pacific University (SPU). Her portfolio at SPU included academic affairs, student affairs, university ministries, and inclusive excellence. She led approximately 220 full-time faculty, more than 100 staff, and managed a budget of approximately $46 million, representing over half of SPU鈥檚 operational spending.

As the second-highest ranking officer at the university, Dr. Hartley co-led SPU鈥檚 strategic planning process with the president and guided weekly senior leadership meetings. Nine months into her tenure, she was asked by the Board of Trustees to serve as Executive in Charge following the unexpected departure of the president鈥攅ntrusting her with oversight of all university operations and the leadership team while supporting the search for an interim president.

Before her time in Seattle, Dr. Hartley spent more than a decade at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon. She first served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, overseeing seven multidisciplinary departments, 57 faculty members, 19 majors, and the majority of the university鈥檚 general education curriculum.

After an academic restructure in 2017, she became Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and Associate Provost for Student Academic Success鈥攅xpanding her leadership to include student learning services, professional studies, the English Language Institute, and a cross-institutional student success team. Throughout her administrative service, Dr. Hartley continued to teach courses in linguistics, anthropology, and first-year experience.

Earlier in her career, she served for seven years at Eastern University鈥檚 Templeton Honors College as Associate Dean and later Director of General Education, leading curriculum revision, advising first-year honors students, and supporting academic programming and donor relations.

Her first professional roles in higher education began at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she worked directly with institutional leadership as Assistant to the President for Special Projects, Grants Officer, and Staff Writer, while also teaching in the graduate program in Intercultural Relations.

Dr. Hartley earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics (sociolinguistics emphasis) and M.A. in Linguistics from Michigan State University, and she completed her B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Wheaton College.

She has further strengthened her leadership through participation in the Penn State Academic Leadership Academy, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities鈥� Leadership Development Institutes, and the Council of Independent Colleges鈥� Senior Leadership Academy

Dr. Hartley has been married for more than 30 years to Dr. Benjamin Hartley, Professor of Contextual Education, Mission, and United Methodist Studies at Eden Theological Seminary. Their family includes two adult children:

• Luke, currently circumnavigating the globe solo on his 27-foot sailboat Songbird, with more than 2 million followers across social media documenting his voyage.
• Tess, a nurse in Chicago with a master鈥檚 degree from Rush University.

Dr. Hartley and her husband will relocate to Kansas City, where they look forward to becoming full members of the Avila community and the region.

In the months to come, 海角直播 will offer multiple opportunities for students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners to meet Dr. Hartley, hear from her directly, and share their hopes for the university鈥檚 future. Her arrival marks an exciting new chapter for Avila as we continue advancing academic innovation, student success, and our mission-centered work.

Please join us in warmly welcoming Dr. Laura C. Hartley to 海角直播

How were you selected?

A panel of NSF reviewers (experts in the field) evaluated my proposal and scored it high enough that the NSF program officer recommended it for funding. The entire process took around one year and was competitive.

How do you plan to use the funds?

Around one-third of the funds go to Avila for administrative and overhead costs, but the rest I鈥檒l spend in a few different ways. I was able to hire a part-time employee to help with CREP work. Her name is Holly France, and she is a current graduate student at Avila. CREP also relies on an extensive standing network of volunteers to review student projects, and we will be able to start paying them for these reviews. We also will use some money to support professional development activities for students who complete CREP projects 鈥� we鈥檒l have meetings on Zoom, for example, that every student in the world who is completing a specific replication project will be able to meet to talk about their project, their hypotheses, and their questions. We鈥檒l also sponsor virtual career fairs and virtual conferences and host workshops on writing up results for publication in undergraduate journals (also virtual). We鈥檒l hire and train peer mentors in years two and three 鈥� students who completed a project in year one and want to help lead the cohorts in future years. Those students will earn stipends, and we will bring them to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) during the spring of years two and three. Finally, we鈥檒l pay instructors and students to participate in pre/post research to evaluate CREP as a pedagogical tool.

How will this impact students at Avila?

Students at Avila will be eligible to participate in the CREP professional development activities, such as peer mentoring, workshops, and conferences. We鈥檒l also be contributing to the literature on what we refer to as authentic research for students, which means that students contribute to the science in their field as part of their coursework. This demystifies the research process for all students and opens access to science participation to anyone in the psychology major, no matter their background, amount of free time, career plans, extracurricular activities, or level of confidence in their abilities related to research. As I tell my students, they may not all want to be scientists, and that鈥檚 okay, but they all deserve to participate. Everyone deserves the opportunity to help construct knowledge in their field.

What does winning this mean to you?

I鈥檓 beyond thrilled that I鈥檒l be able to scale up CREP鈥檚 activities. It鈥檚 a project I truly believe in and 鈥� I know this is clich茅 鈥� am very passionate about. It sits at the intersection of everything I love 鈥� pedagogy, inclusivity, access, science, and smart solutions to difficult problems in the field. It means I can spend time working on this over summers, hire people to help improve the CREP experience, and support our students in new ways鈥� there鈥檚 so much more that CREP can do now.

Anything else of note?

I think the mission of the CREP is consistent with the vision and values of the Sisters of St. Joseph. The primary purpose of the work we do is, in my opinion, to give students opportunities that they might not otherwise have unless they were at a doctoral-granting institution and had one, a lot of free time to work (typically for free) in a research laboratory AND two, a lot of preparation and training that made their skills valuable to the supervisors in those laboratories. To me, opening up that process to anyone as part of their education is valuable not only in giving them the experiences usually reserved for the most elite students at the most elite institutions but also in bringing scientists with a truly diverse set of experiences and backgrounds into the process of science and ensuring they feel a sense of belonging in that space. It鈥檚 about upholding the worth and dignity of every one of our psychology majors 鈥� not just at Avila but at every course in the world that participates in CREP. The support I鈥檝e received from Avila for this grant 鈥� specifically from Joseph Jefferson, who helped me with the grant submission 鈥� will help us 鈥渟erve the dear neighbor without distinction鈥� in this sense, too 鈥� any course with students who want to complete replications are eligible to participate.