Betsy Barefoot is a native of North Carolina. She holds a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education from Duke University and Master's and Doctoral Degrees in Higher Education from the College of William and Mary.  Currently, Dr. Barefoot serves as Co-Director for the Policy Center on the First Year of College, funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, and Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at Brevard College in Brevard, North Carolina, where the Policy Center is located. In her work at the Policy Center Dr. Barefoot is directly involved in the development of instruments and strategies to assess the first college year. In addition, she conducts seminars on the first-year experience across the United States and in other countries and assists other colleges and universities in implementing and evaluating first-year programs. Prior to assuming this position, Dr. Barefoot served for 11 years as Co-Director for Research and Publications in the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina. In this position, she engaged in ongoing research on first-year programming in American higher education and co-edited a number of publications including the Journal of The First-Year Experience, the First-Year Experience Newsletter, and a series of single-topic monographs. While at the University of South Carolina, Dr. Barefoot also served as a clinical faculty member in the University of South Carolina's College of Education and taught graduate courses in Principles of College Teaching, Contemporary Trends and Issues in Higher Education, a special topics seminar on The First-Year Experience, as well as the University 101 first-year seminar. Dr. Barefoot was also involved in acquiring grant funds, designing, and implementing a campus-wide program to provide training in methods of college teaching for graduate teaching assistants at the University of South Carolina. Prior to coming to the University of South Carolina, Dr. Barefoot held the following positions in other college and university settings: Assistant to the Vice President for Admissions at Lambuth College in Jackson, Tennessee; Director of the University of LaVerne Residence Center in San Diego, California; Assistant to the Director of the Virginia Tidewater Consortium for Continuing Higher Education in Norfolk, Virginia; Research Assistant in the School of Education at College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.Dr. Barefoot continues her interest in music as an occasional vocal performer, pianist, and church organist.