In her new role, Howard will engage with the alumni of these programs through outreach, events and programming. She’ll work closely with the deans and alumni boards of each school to continue to maintain and create new connections and opportunities for alumni to stay involved with UMKC and their respective schools.

Previously, Howard assisted with oversight of the educational development of 240 student-athletes, overseeing and managing the day-to-day operations of SASSO including a wide array of mentoring and tutoring programs. She also served as the campus SALC advisor and as director of student-athlete development programming, including the scheduling and implementation of speakers, workshops, bystander training and APPLE Team programming.

Howard is a member of the UMKC Staff Council engagement committee. She has also worked with the Flexible Work Arrangement Task Force, the Strategic Planning Committee, the UMKC Mental Health Task Force and the UMKC Green Dot Team. She received the UMKC Staff Council “Living the Values” award in 2019.

Howard has served as assistant director of academic support in the athletics department since 2015. Before that, she was the learning services coordinator for the Student-Athlete Support Services Office (SASSO). She joined the full-time staff in 2011 after working in different capacities for SASSO from 2008-2011 during which she mentored and tutored individual at-risk student-athletes, tracking academic progress on a weekly basis.

Prior to serving as an academic mentor, Howard was an NCAA tutor and proctor for SASSO from 2008-2010. She worked with student-athletes in all levels of English and Language Arts courses as well as proctored the study hall on a weekly basis.