LaVena

Dr. LaVena Wilkin is the Executive Dean of the College of Business and Technology and the Coordinator of the PhD in Management programs at Sullivan University. Before joining Sullivan, she spent twenty-six years in the construction industry, and three of those years she co-owned a masonry sub-contracting company. She started teaching as an adjunct instructor in 1999. After selling the construction company in 2001, she came to work at Sullivan full-time as the Associate Director of the Evening and Weekend Division. She has also served as the Dean of Conflict Management programs for Sullivan.

Dr. Wilkin has facilitated workshops on communication, conflict, emotional intelligence, forgiveness, P.E.A.C.E. from Conflict, and workplace bullying for the Center for Non Profit Excellence, The Archdiocese of Louisville, Integrating Women Leaders, FireKing, Governor's Equal Employment Opportunity Annual Conference, the Academic Leadership Academy, the Atria Senior Living, Unity of East Louisville, Duke Energy, The Archdiocese of Louisville, and several other organizations. She also created a basic conflict management course for the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). And she conducted a Webinar for Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) entitled Managing Conflicts With Your Dissertation Chair.

She has done numerous motivational talks for Unity of East Louisville and Unity of Louisville.

Dr. Wilkin published an article on workplace bullying in the International Journal of Business and Social Science, and for several years she wrote a quarterly column for Business First. She contributed a chapter in The Handbook of Mediation: Research, Theory, and Practice. She is also co-editor of a book entitled Organizational Conflicts: Challenges and Solutions. She is the Editor for the Journal of Conflict Management, a scholarly journal that publishes research in many of the multidisciplinary areas of managing conflicts. She co-edited a book, entitled From Discord to Harmony: Making the Workplace Hum, which was published in March 2020. She also contributed a chapter entitled “From Disruption to Connection: How Mindful Conflict Management Builds Bridges During the Pandemic and Beyond” in the book, Back to a New Normal: In Search of Stability in an Era of Pandemic Disruption, which was published in 2022. In addition, her latest project, The Handbook of Organizational Conflict Management, was published through De Gruyter Publishing in September 2022.

She is a certified mediator, conflict coach, and employee engagement facilitator. Dr. Wilkin earned her bachelors and master’s degrees from Sullivan University. She earned her PhD in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Her dissertation topic was workplace bullying in academe.

Dr. Wilkin is the Vice-President emeritus for the Board of Directors at Unity of East Louisville. Additionally, she previously served on the Board of Directors for the Society for the Prevention and Aggression Among Adolescence (SPAVA).