Dr. Karen P. DePauw
Vice President and Dean for Graduate Education
Karen P. DePauw is Vice President and Dean for Graduate Education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and tenured Professor in the Departments of Sociology and Human Nutrition, Foods & Exercise. Before coming to Tech, she served 22 years on the faculty at Washington State University and held several administrative positions, including Dean of the Graduate School. In her administrative positions, she has been a strong advocate for diversity and equity in higher education and has spoken at national conferences on changing roles and responsibilities of faculty, preparing the future professoriate and change facing the 21st century university.
Dr. DePauw has held several leadership roles in graduate education. She was a founding member and Facilitator/Chair for the Virginia Council of Graduate School (VCGS) and assumes the position of President of the Council of Southern Graduate Schools (CSGS) in February 2007. She has been a panelist, speaker and presenter at regional affiliates (CSGS, WAGS) and national CGS meetings and workshops. In addition, she has been an invited speaker for NSF IGERT meetings and NSF Advance conferences and workshops.
At Virginia Tech, her major accomplishments include success in building a strong graduate community, the establishment of the innovative Graduate Life Center (GLC), the implementation of an imaging system (Nolij) and the signature initiative known as Transformative Graduate Education (TGE). Transformative Graduate Education includes programs and coursework in the following programs: Preparing the Future Professoriate (PFP), Preparing the Career Professional (PFPro), Graduate Education Development Institute (GEDI) (with VT Learning Technologies), GTA workshop, and Citizen Scholar engagement program (CSE). As Graduate Dean, she teaches Preparing the Future Professoriate, Citizen Scholar Seminar, and PFP: Global Perspectives seminar annually.
Dr. DePauw has earned a scholarly reputation in the fields of kinesiology, disability sport and disability studies. She has published extensively (75+ books, journal articles and chapters), presented keynote and scholar lectures (more than 150) around the world. She has served as a journal editor, on numerous editorial boards, and in numerous leadership positions for national and international sport science associations. Dr. DePauw earned the A.B. in Sociology from Whittier College, M.S. in Special Education from California State University, Long Beach, and a Ph.D. in Kinesiology from Texas Woman’s University. She previously taught with the Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County Schools and at California State University – Los Angeles.