Dr. Laura Soulsby is the Title IX Coordinator Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia with over 17 years of higher education teaching and leadership experience. Focusing on educational policy and law, she received her doctorate in Higher Education from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Soulsby is an Instructor at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. Teaching in the Medical and Health Professions Education graduate program, she focuses on current issues, policy, and laws impacting the higher education landscape. She is also an Associate Editor for the Journal of International Students, a top-ranked interdisciplinary, peer reviewed publication in international education and higher education.
For over a decade, Dr. Soulsby was a faculty administrator and adjunct instructor at Tidewater Community College (TCC) in Hampton Roads, Virginia. At TCC, she established an office dedicated to multicultural and intercultural education, including the women’s center, study abroad, and international student services. Under her leadership, the women’s center provided ongoing direct support services, year-long co-curricular programs on STEM education and women’s leadership, 200 annual hours of trainings, educational programs, and events, and career-based networking opportunities with a community advisory council.
As the coordinator of the TCC women’s center, Dr. Soulsby developed programs and initiatives on healthy relationships, intimate partner violence, stalking, and sexual assault. She also served on the Title IX, Clery Act, and sexual misconduct advisory and response committees. Since 2007, Dr. Soulsby has participated on the state-wide Virginia Action Alliance’s Red Flag Campaign and Virginia Campus Task Force to address campus safety in Virginia. In 2015, she was invited by the Office of Attorney General under Mark Herring to present best practices for addressing campus sexual violence.
Dr. Soulsby found her passion for higher education by serving as a resident assistant and chairing the college’s Judicial Board at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia, where she received her BA in English. She also holds a MA in Humanities and Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. She currently lives in Henrico, Virginia with her spouse and two dogs.