Cyndie Shepard Biography

Cyndie Shepard, wife of Western Washington University President, Bruce Shepard, is currently teaching in the Dance department at WWU.  She is in the process of mounting a pilot mentoring initiative approved by the Washington Legislature in spring 2009, Compass 2 Campus, that will involve WWU students and faculty in collaboration with Whatcom and Skagit county school districts, and WCC, BTC, and SVCC.  This initiative will be similar to a program she co-founded and created in Wisconsin.

Cyndie served as director and co-founder of the Phuture Phoenix Program at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. The award-winning program, launched in 2003, encourages students to graduate from high school and move on to higher education. It does so by bringing students from at-risk schools to the UW-Green Bay campus as fifth graders and by providing positive role models, tutoring and mentoring to them until 12th grade.  

In addition to her work with Phuture Phoenix and serving as an instructor in the Education and Theatre programs at UW-Green Bay, she was involved with the UW-Green Bay Capital Campaign and with the University’s chapter of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. She also volunteered her time and energy to the United Way, Scholarships Inc., St. Mary’s Hospital, ASPIRO (Brown County Association for Retarded Citizens), and the North East Wisconsin Dance Organization.

Cyndie has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from California State University, Fullerton, a master’s degree in psychology from Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles, and extensive teaching certification in P-12 education, special education and administration from UC Irvine. Cyndie also has a background as a dancer and teacher of dance.

Contact Cyndie by email