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Dr. Shewanee Howard-Baptiste
“I think sometimes the world tells 18-year-olds that they have to know exactly what they want to do for the rest of their life. But you don’t have to have it all figured out,” she says. “What I realized is that I enjoyed health, and I enjoyed exercise and connecting with people, but I didn’t necessarily know if pre-med or the medical route was the best fit for me. The benefit for me is that I had really great mentors who just really encouraged me and provided me with opportunities to explore.”
Those opportunities led Howard-Baptiste to Miami University in Ohio where she earned degrees in exercise science, health promotion, and a Ph.D. in educational leadership.
“Continually going back to that same campus was ideal because I still was able to connect with mentors and faculty and staff and it really just nurtured my journey in higher education,” she says.
Although Howard-Baptiste initially planned to pursue a career in the sports and fitness industry, inspired by her years as a high school volleyball player and intramural athlete in college, she eventually decided to go into academia. She worked her way through the ranks as a professor, eventually landing at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, and then an internship opportunity in the Office of the Provost came her way.
“My pathway was training as a traditional faculty member, going from an assistant to associate to a full professor, but I was looking to do something more, but I didn’t necessarily know what more looked like in higher ed,” she says. Through that internship, she got to work on senior level executive projects that supported the entire campus.
“I really enjoy meeting and collaborating with colleagues from across the campus, and it just gave me a much larger enterprise view of how education works and operates to support faculty, staff and students,” she says.
