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Academic Affairs Leadership & Staff

Dr. Jack DeRochi
Title	Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs
Email	jderochi@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5176
Office	Ikenberry 206
Jack DeRochi currently serves as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs. A tenured professor of English, DeRochi earned his Ph.D. at the University of South Carolina; his research centers on satire and late eighteenth-century drama. Prior to joining Shepherd University, he served in variety of administrative roles at Winthrop University, including as Dean of the School of Graduate, Continuing, and Online Education; Interim Vice President for Enrollment Management, and Interim Vice President for University Advancement. A strong advocate for higher education, DeRochi served as President of the Conference of Southern Graduate Schools (CSGS) and on the board of the Council for Historically Black Graduate Schools. He has given numerous plenaries and administrative presentations at conferences and workshops that focus on the challenges now impacting higher education—specifically, the accelerating demographic shifts, technological disruptions, the rise of student debt, and the increase of new competition. He just completed a fellowship with the Association of Governing Boards (AGB), participating in the Institute for Leadership and Governance in Higher Education. Previously, he was named a Fellow of the P3-Edu Organization, which seeks to develop best practices and expand the impact of public-private partnerships in higher education.

Dr. Kurtis Adams
Title	Dean, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Email	kadams02@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5237
Kurtis Adams found his passion for music at an early age. As a child, he gave pretend concerts in between raiding his parents’ music collection. Eventually, the pretend concerts became real when he began playing the saxophone at age nine, then deciding to pursue music professionally while in high school. After completing his bachelor’s degree, Dr. Adams moved to Boulder for graduate studies at the University of Colorado. As an integral part of the Colorado music community, he performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Music Festival Orchestra, Ultraphonic Jazz Orchestra, Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, and the 9th and Lincoln Orchestra, and shared the stage with great musicians including Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D’Rivera, Greg Gisbert, Pat Bianchi, Jeff Jenkins, Brad Goode, Joe Lovano, Conrad Herwig, Jiggs Whigham, Tom Harrell, Bobby Shew, and Bob Mintzer. As a recording artist, Dr. Adams has recorded three albums as a leader: Two Weeks Until Tuesday, Collage, and Micro-Orchestra. Additionally, he has appeared on several albums as a sideman and continues to perform throughout the mid-Atlantic region. Currently, Dr. Adams serves as Interim Dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and is the Director of Jazz Studies at Shepherd University where he directs the jazz ensembles and teaches courses in the jazz curriculum.

Dr. Jason Best
Title	Associate Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness
Email	jbest@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5331
Dr. Jason Best serves as the Associate Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness at Shepherd University, where he is also a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics. A member of the Shepherd University faculty since 1997, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana University and a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Best is currently a member of the Higher Learning Commission’s Peer Review Corps, the West Virginia Science and Research Council, and the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s Microcredential Advisory Committee, serves on the Shepherd University Foundation as an officer and Executive Committee member, and is Shepherd’s Accreditation Liaison Officer. Dr. Best has served on the National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical Sciences Committee of Visitors, the national Council on Undergraduate Research’s Task Force on Integrating Research into the Curriculum, the National Advisory Committee for the PRAXIS Earth and Space Sciences Examination, and as President of the West Virginia Academy of Science. He was a member of the 2015-2016 American Council on Education Fellows Class, and has also served as a voting member of the Shepherd University Board of Governors, as Co-Chair of the university Strategic Planning Committee, as Shepherd’s Research Integrity Officer, as Chair of the Institutional Review Board, and as President of the university Faculty Senate. Dr. Best’s research publications and presentations are in fields as diverse as galactic evolution, the large-scale structure of the universe, virtual reality, and the evolution of Renaissance cosmology. In addition, he has been awarded numerous research grants from federal and state agencies, has been featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Research section and in West Virginia Science and Research’s Neuron journal and Scientist Spotlight Video Series, and has served as a grant reviewer and research referee for numerous national and international journals and agencies.

Dr. Ben Martz
Title	Dean, College of Business, Recreation, and Education
Email	bmartz@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5007
Dr. Ben Martz is the Dean of the College of Business. He also holds the Edward L. Snyder Endowed Chair in Business. During the 2021-2022 academic year, he served as the Interim Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs. Ben received his B.B.A in Marketing from the College of William & Mary; his M.S. in Management Information Systems (MIS) and his Ph.D. in Business, with an emphasis in MIS, from the University of Arizona. He was one of the founding members, as well as President and COO, of Ventana Corporation – a technology, spin-off firm from the University of Arizona – incorporated to commercialize the groupware software product GroupSystems. In 1994, GroupSystems won PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice award for best Electronic Meeting System software. In 1995, Ben was an Ernst & Young nominee for Entrepreneur of the Year in Arizona. Ben’s teaching interests include problem solving and creativity, business analytics, software development, groupware and team-based problem solving. He has published his groupware research in MIS Quarterly, Decision Support Systems, and the Journal of Management Information Systems and his student learning and problem solving research in Journal of Cooperative Education, Journal of Computer Information Systems and the Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education.

Dr. Richard Stevens
Title	Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs
Email	rstevens@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5651
Dr. Richard Stevens currently serves as the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs at Shepherd University. Dr. Stevens was instrumental in the development of the CSDA program and has taught in the program since 2006. He joined the program as a full-time faculty in 2008. Collaboration between Student Affairs and Academic Affairs has resulted in 20 assistantships. He has focused much of his energy on social justice and multicultural issues. He co-founded Shepherd University’s Civility Response Team and serves as Sexual Assault Victim Advocate. He has been a national presenter on sexual orientation and gender identity topics and has training as a sexual assault victim advocate and sexual harassment prevention trainer. Dr. Stevens was recognized with as the 2010 Shepherd University Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award. He was recognized in 2012 as one of ACPA’s Diamond Honoree for service to the association and profession and 2016 with the Annuit Coeptis Award for contributions to the profession. He received the 2016 Storer College Faculty Award for his social justice work in and out of the classroom. He is a member of Chi Sigma Alpha-Student Affairs Honorary, Phi Mu Alpha, Phi Kappa Phi,and Mensa. Dr. Stevens received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, his M.S. from Iowa State University and his BA from the College of William and Mary. Dr. Stevens and his husband currently live in Herndon, VA. In his spare time, he enjoys Taekwondo, running, MMOs, and genealogy.

Dr. Richard Thompson
Title	Dean, College of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Nursing
Email	RTHOMPSO@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5274
Dr. Richard Thompson is the Dean of the College of STEM & Nursing. He earned his B.S. degree in Astronomy from the University of Florida and his Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics from Penn State University. Dr. Thompson was on the faculty of McMurry University (Abilene, TX), and then served as a dean at the College of Saint Rose (Albany, NY) and Cabrini University (Philadelphia, PA). Prior to joining Shepherd, Dr. Thompson was the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at New Mexico Tech (Socorro, NM), where he led the campus through a successful comprehensive accreditation review. Dr. Thompson has been a career-long advocate for active learning in the sciences and for engaging undergraduates in meaningful research activities. In support of these interests, he served for a decade as an elected councilor for Physics and Astronomy within the Council on Undergraduate Research. Dr. Thompson has also been professionally active in institutional accreditation, having served as a peer reviewer for both the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and the Higher Learning Commission. Dr. Thompson’s scholarly research has involved both ground-based and space-based astronomical observations of pulsars, galaxies, and black holes. He has also published and presented on various topics related to science pedagogy as well as having published a book in the field of History of Technology. In his spare time, Dr. Thompson enjoys cooking, music, hiking, and bird watching.

Ms. Sara Maene
Title	Director, Institutional Research
Email	smaene@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5112
Office	Ikenberry 104A
Ms. Maene earned her B.A. from Wellesley College, double majoring in both physics and astronomy. She earned a Master’s degree in astrophysics and a Postgraduate Certificate in institutional research from Penn State University. After several years as the Application Systems Specialist for Penn State’s University Testing Services, she came to Shepherd. She then worked for several years in I.T. Services, first as the Information Technology Assistant specializing in UNIX and Mac operating systems, and then as the Data Network Specialist. Since 2005, she has served as the head of Shepherd’s Office of Institutional Research, which provides institutional data to federal and state entities as well as the university community. While at Shepherd, Ms. Maene has been professionally active in numerous disciplines. She is a member of the national Association for Institutional Research, is currently Shepherd’s representative to the WV HEPC’s Data Policy Advisory Council, and was a member of the inaugural board of directors of the West Virginia Association for Institutional Research (WVAIR). She has published and presented numerous research papers in the field of scientific visualization. She has also served as a NASA JPL Ambassador to the Solar System and the Vice-Chair of Shepherd’s Classified Employees Council, as well as an officer of Shepherd’s chapter of Phi Kappa Phi.

Valerie Wright
Title	Academic Affairs Coordinator
Email	vwright@shepherd.edu ( Email )
Phone	304-876-5176
Valerie graduated from the Castleton State College in 1998 with a bachelor’s degree in Developmental Psychology and Elementary Education. Val taught fourth grade for five years before taking time off to raise her children. She returned to the education field as the Administrative Assistant to the Principal of a middle school, where she worked for 11 years. She moved to West Virginia in 2021 and began working at Shepherd as the Administrative Assistant for the Departments of Communications, History and English and Modern Languages before taking the position with Academic Affairs at the end of 2022.