Alma Clayton-Pedersen is a Knowledge-Based Director on the 2020-21 NACE Board of Directors.
Clayton-Pedersen is the chief executive officer of Emeritus Consulting Group, based in Chicago. Previously, she served as a senior scholar at the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) from 2010 – 2013, and as AAC&U’s vice president for education and institutional renewal from 2001 – 2010.
At AAC&U, she established the association’s national Inclusive Excellence initiative, which advanced AAC&U’s strategic priority: Aim High and Make Excellence Inclusive. In addition, she directed the work of “Preparing Critical Faculty for the Future,” a three-year project funded by the National Science Foundation.
Prior to AAC&U, she held a variety of senior administrative roles at Vanderbilt University, where she conducted more than 20 studies on campus climate for diversity, student retention, and student use and impact of campus student programming and services. In addition, she is co-author of a number of publications, including Making a Real Difference With Diversity: A Guide to Institutional Change and Enacting Diverse Learning Environments: Improving the Climate for Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Higher Education, which focus on practices designed to enhance a climate of diversity, and The Revolving Door for Underrepresented Minority Faculty in Higher Education, which identifies factors that can contribute to successful recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority faculty.
Clayton-Pedersen consults nationally and internationally on a range of higher-education and diversity-related issues, including faculty professional development, program evaluation, and diversity and institutional change.
In her role as a Knowledge-Based Director, Clayton-Pedersen will assist NACE in developing strategies and action plans around practices of excellence to fulfill NACE’s commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity. In addition she will share her expertise by consulting with the Inclusion Committee and by engaging in the development of quality programming at the NACE conference.
Clayton-Pedersen holds both a Ph.D. and M.Ed. from Vanderbilt University and earned a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.