Faculty Feature: Dean Stacey Sandeford-Lyons

Stacey T. Sandeford-Lyons serves as Dean of Student Success and Academic Services for Vanguard University of Southern California. Stacey is a campus and community leader, committed to higher education access and success and the advancement of the underserved.

Stacey is a student success leader. Throughout her nearly 20-year career in higher education, she has held positions in teaching, as well as advising, learning assistance, and access program administration, allowing her to inspire students from diverse cultural, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds. She sees her work as a platform for social justice, offering marginalized students the possibility of social mobility through higher education.

Stacey is an advocate for first-generation and under-resourced students and supports research to identify non-traditional factors that effectively predict the success of underprepared learners.

She has studied compensatory education in South Africa, education inequities in rural Louisiana, and was the recipient of the Louisiana Education Research Association Distinguished Research Paper Award, and the Louisiana Education Quality Doctoral Student Fellowship.

Stacey is a community leader. As Vice Chair of the Women’s Advisory Board of Mecklenburg County, and as a Board Member for the National Association for UN Women, NC Chapter, she has delivered numerous presentations to civic leaders and community members to raise awareness of issues affecting women locally and internationally including human trafficking, domestic violence, and the gender wage gap. Most recently,

Stacey contributed to reducing transitional homelessness as a member of The Harvest Center of Charlotte Board of Directors. She is looking forward to continuing her work in the community now that she has relocated to Southern California.

Stacey holds a BA in Psychology from the University of the Pacific, an MS in Developmental Education emphasizing Guidance and Counseling from Grambling State University and is near completion of her doctoral studies in Developmental Education emphasizing Higher Education Administration and Management, also from Grambling State University.

A native of Oakland, CA, Stacey is the wife of Dr. Robert Lyons, Jr., and the proud mother of one daughter, Hannah. When able, Stacey enjoys art, photography, travel, and African dance and drumming.