ABOUT US - The Acclivity

Dr. Loren M. Hill, Founder and CEO of Acclivity, is a strategic academic career consultant and coach who advises college and university faculty on the often challenging process of advancing through the academic ranks. With a doctorate in clinical psychology and more than twenty-five years in higher education, she works with a wide range of academic professionals as they seek opportunities to climb the ladder of higher education success.

Dr. Hill combines her clinical training with a life-long passion for teaching that helps her clients achieve academic mobility, greater recognition, and overall wellbeing. As core faculty, she has held a variety of senior academic roles, working her way up from adjunct to associate to department chair. Armed with first-hand knowledge of the often-rigorous expectations for academic success, she inspires her clients to see their accomplishments and value in new and highly marketable ways.

Dr. Hill founded Acclivity after years of informally advising colleagues, mentees, and students to pursue the jobs they wanted, to get the promotions they deserved, and to pursue positions of increasing responsibility. She quickly recognized the growing needs of early to mid-career professionals in the academy, as well as the pressing need for increasing diversity across the board in higher education.

OUR MISSION

Dr. Hill’s mission is to empower people in their search for academic recognition and success and to provide the strategic and tactical support necessary for higher education advancement.

Being a graduate student for her was a lonely experience as she believes it is for many. The intensity of the process, the arduous and highly competitive environment in which she found herself, left her with the awareness that she was on her own, with little support, and a growing sense that she did not belong. As she entered academia and began to assume academic and administrative appointments, she soon discovered that this same doubt, uncertainty, and isolation continued and was common in her peer groups.

She set about to change this.

Thanks to her advancement into the faculty and academic administrative arena, she gained a unique perspective on the ‘cradle to grave’ student lifespan and became uniquely qualified to assist a wide range of students, faculty, and administrators in their quests for professional mobility and achievement.

Her vision is driven by the conviction that academic success and career advancement can and should be inclusive, collaborative, and attainable, with opportunity and success for all.

CLIENTELE

1. Early to Mid-Career Faculty in colleges and universities considering a promotion, greater visibility and responsibility (Assistant, Associate, Department Chair, Dean, Provost) or a transition out of post-secondary education.

2. Faculty in Transition who are considering a move out of the academy into private industry, nonprofit management, or entrepreneurship.

3. Mid-Career Professionals in Private or Nonprofit Sectors who want to teach or transition into academic administrative positions.

EXPERIENCE + EXPERTISE

Combining her clinical training in behavioral health with her passion for teaching has always been important to her. While pursuing her dual Master’s and subsequent Ph.D., she began her career in higher education teaching as an adjunct, working her way up and through the academic ranks, eventually becoming core faculty and department chair. Along the way, she found that she was able to use that experience to help others understand the process of professional academic success as they sought new areas of academic responsibility. She soon discovered that she had a knack for coaching a wide variety of people, helping them to understand and capitalize on the often-mystifying process of academic mobility and success.

During her career, she’s been fortunate to have “done it all.” She’s climbed through the university ranks, entering first as adjunct faculty, then to assistant faculty, moving up as an associate, and eventually becoming department chair. She had the benefit of serving on numerous search committees, hiring faculty, and working closely with HR on many administrative selection and hiring teams. This “in the trenches” experience has given her a valuable perspective on the unique challenges that women, especially women of color, face
as they navigate the road to academic recognition and leadership.

SELECTED ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Dr. Loren M. Hill is a licensed clinical psychologist in private practice and an experienced academician.

She is currently Associate Faculty at Union Institute and University’s Division of Education. Previously she held the position of Director of the Forensic Psychology Post-Baccalaureate Certificates Program at Fielding Graduate University. Before that appointment, Dr. Hill was the Department Chair and Director of the Forensic Training Institute in the Clinical Forensic Department at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology.

Among her many accomplishments, she is a 2019 Feminist Academic Leadership Academy Fellow. In 2015, she was selected as a RAND Corporation Faculty Workshop in Policy Research and Analysis fellow. For the past seven years, she has been invited to participate in the STEM Women of Color Conclave, now sponsored by Fielding Graduate University. In 2014 she received a coveted fellowship for the TCSPP- National Science Foundation’s OURS (Opportunities for Under-Represented Scholars), Post-Graduate Certificate in Academic Leadership program. Dr. Hill is an alumnus of the African American Board Leadership Institute and is a member of the programming committee.

She was awarded the 2014 Distinguished Faculty in Community Partnership Award for her contributions as a journal reviewer and service on the International Conference on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma conference board. In 2012 she was awarded The Chicago School of Psychology’s Faculty Award of Excellence by the President of the University for her contribution to teaching, research, and community outreach.

As a busy educator, you have a full plate of responsibilities and tasks. Dr. Hill knows how arduous the promotion process at academic institutions can seem. She’s been on both sides and she coaches professionals just like you through the promotion process of academia.