Kristy Howell

Get to Know Us

Kristy Wittman Howell is a historian and community organizer who joined the Institute for Community & Economic Engagement in 2023.

As a career educator, Kristy’s experiences are varied, including advocating for student and institutional leadership in sustainable development, developing faculty capacity for sustainability-focused education, coordinating honors and undergraduate research opportunities in community-based participatory scholarship, and institutional research. Throughout, her focus has been on the development, growth, and understanding of more equitable institutional cultures and communities for faculty, staff, students, and community members.

Kristy holds an Ed.D. in Community College Leadership from Northern Illinois University, where her research focused on the history and development of community colleges in racially-restricted communities, and an MA in Social Responsibility and Sustainable Communities from Western Kentucky University, where she focused on supporting sustainability-focused curriculum development in the humanities. As an undergraduate at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi, Kristy hoped to either teach history or become a Grammy-winning jazz vibraphonist, so she majored in history and music.

Kristy’s current research focuses on the history of integration and student experiences in community colleges in Mississippi during the 1960s, continuing her focus on how we create educational communities. She enjoys reading, running, playing the guitar, knitting, and exploring the area as a new North Carolinian.