Our Mission

Dr. Rachel Althof is the Program Chair for the EdD in Organizational Leadership program and Chair of Graduate Council. Dr. Althof is an active peer reviewer for the American Educational Research Association (AERA), International Leadership Association (ILA), Informing Science Institute (ISI), and International Journal of Doctoral Studies (IJDS). Dr. Althof’s research interests include leadership development, organizational theory, teaching and learning practices and theory, and educational leadership.

Dr. Althof holds a Doctor of Education from Columbia University, a Master of Arts from The Ohio State University, and a Bachelor of Art Education with distinction from The Ohio State University.

Please see Dr. Althof’s faculty profile page for more information.

Dr. Bagar-Fraley currently serves as Program Chair for the Master of Science in Advanced Professional Studies and as Doctoral Lead Faculty, where she oversees doctoral writing courses and supports workshops and seminars for doctoral students and candidates. She has over fifteen years of previous higher education teaching experience at Ohio University, Ohio University Lancaster, and Marshall University. Dr. Bagar-Fraley earned her Ph.D. in English from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, her M.A. from Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, and her B.A. from Concord University in Athens, West Virginia.

Dr. Chongwony is currently serving as Director of Research Core and as Lead Faculty, Quantitative Methods and Research Design. He has a very rich diverse educational background and research interests, including big-data methodology and analytics; performance improvement; instructional technology, design and leadership; organizational learning and knowledge management; and management of innovations. He has made several presentations as well as published. Dr. Chongwony is open to and very interested in collaboration on research projects. He graduated with a Ph.D. in Instructional Technology & Design and a Master of Arts in International Affairs from Ohio University. Dr. Chongwony also holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and a Bachelor of Arts in Business Studies from Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya. He holds a certificate in Performance Improvement from International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) and several badges, including SAS Programming and Interactive Model Building.

Marc Jaffy joined the library in July, 2017 after a career in law. He is currently the Scholarly Communications and Affordable Learning Librarian. Before moving to that role in June, 2022, he worked as the Acquisitions Librarian. He is responsible for administering FUSE, the library’s institutional repository, as well as the university's eTextbook program, with a particular focus on making free via library eTextbooks and open educational resources available to students. Additionally, Marc serves as the LibInsights administrator, capturing and analyzing all statistics for Learning Commons services and products, as well as assisting the Franklin University community in understanding, applying, and complying with copyright law.

Marc holds a JD from Northwestern University School of Law, a Master’s of Library & Information Science from Kent State University, and a BA in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences / Political Science from Northwestern University

Library Liaison Areas: Office of Academic Scholarship, Doctoral Programs, Writing Programs, Instructional Design, and School of Education.

Shelly Oberdier is Franklin University’s Doctoral Studies Coordinator, assisting faculty and doctoral students who are in their coursework stage.

Dr. Mike Posey is currently Lead Faculty for Popular Culture, Interpersonal Communication, and Public Relations. He teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate level courses including Leadership Theory. He holds a BA & MA degree in Interpersonal Communication and a PhD in Higher Education Administration and Leadership with a doctoral cognate in Sociology.  

Dr. Posey has been at Franklin for 26+ years and during that time has held a variety of positions including overseeing General Education and being the Chair of the Division of Arts and Sciences. He has written articles, presented at numerous conferences in the U.S. and abroad over the years, and has been a contributing editor to two textbooks. Dr. Posey also consults, speaks, and runs a family-friendly YouTube Channel in his spare time. Dr. Posey founded and built a tech and publishing company in the late '90s, and always tries to find the good in everything and believes that every student has a journey and that the courses he develops and teaches are but one stop on that journey. Dr. Posey sees his job to make that journey a pleasant and educational one for all involved. His job is to indeed help students Finish, Advance, and Succeed!

Kelly B. Renner, Ph.D., LPC is the Program Chair, Psychology and Social Sciences and Director, Prison Education System at Franklin University. She has enjoyed teaching at Franklin University since 2012, and was a 2014 Teaching Excellence Award recipient, as well as the 2019 Inaugural Faculty Fellow. Dr. Renner was awarded a Fulbright Specialist Grant in 2024 to serve as a guest lecturer at Marmara University in Istanbul, Türkiye. Dr. Renner’s research interests, speaking engagements, professional presentations, book chapters, and publications are on the topics of burnout, motivation, and team building.

Dr. Marnie Shaffer manages the Institutional Review Board (IRB) Office and the Office of Academic Scholarship (OAS). 

Dr. Amiee Wagner is a Lead Faculty in Doctoral Studies as well as an IRB Administrator at Franklin University.

See Dr. Wagner's faculty profile page for more information.