Ann Walter

Ann oversees a key study away location for the School of Fashion including the administrative, instructional, operational and technological aspects of the facility and program. In this role, she focuses on the development and implementation of academic programming focused on building professional relationships for students during their time in New York City, increasing engagement with both alumni and the industry and facilitating career preparation. She is passionate about centering educational leadership practices with a social justice lens to ensure academic environments that are diverse, equitable and inclusive for all.

Ann has been a member of a Kent State University Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion subcommittee on curriculum, and currently serves as a member of the College of the Arts Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism taskforce, and is co-chair of the School of Fashion Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism committee. In addition, she currently serves as the faculty representative on the Kent State University Alumni Association National Board of Directors.

Prior to her current role with the University, she taught online and face-to-face courses geared toward fashion and the creative industries as an adjunct instructor at the New York City Fashion campus for over ten years.

Prior to her work in education, Ann had an extensive background in the fashion industry designing product and leading creative teams for a range of specialty and mass retailers including Gap, Old Navy, Liz Claiborne, Justice, Sears Holdings, Dots, Bonobos and Walmart. In these various roles, she demonstrated a proven aptitude as a cross-functional business partner capable of delivering a creative vision supporting organizational strategies and making substantial contributions to the long-term success of a business. In her most recent industry role, she worked as a design operations consultant focused on process improvement and standardization in design, product development and supply chain departments.  In that capacity, she has created and implemented tools, processes and best practices, as well as served as the internal project manager for the implementation, training and deployment of a cloud-based product lifecycle management (PLM) system.

Ann is an alumna of the Shannon Rodgers & Jerry Silverman School of Fashion Design and Merchandising at Kent State University with a Bachelor of Arts in Fashion Design. She received her Master of Education in Instructional Technology degree from Kent State University where she focused her work on the future of online education in the applied arts. Currently, she is a doctoral candidate in the Ed.D. in Interprofessional Leadership program in the College of Education, Health and Human Services at Kent State University where her research is focused on the intersection of fashion education, technology and social justice.