As a member of the Woodward Academy Upper School Core Inclusion Team, Colonel (Retired) Stephanie L. Stephens helps plan and implement diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives for the Upper School faculty with the goal of fostering inclusion and a deep respect for difference by valuing the unique qualities of each person with whom she interacts.

Stephanie attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduating with a B.S. in psychology and a commission in the Army Military Police Corps. After receiving her J.D. from the University of Virginia Law School she transferred to the Army Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. She later earned a LL.M. in Military Law, with a specialty in Administrative and Civil Law. 

Stephens’ interest in education was cultivated when she served as an Associate Professor of Law, and later Deputy Director, Academic Department, at the Army JAG School. Upon her retirement from the Army in 2012, after 26-years of active federal service, she taught as Associate Professor at Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School. In 2013, she began teaching Social Studies at the Woodward Academy Upper School. In 2017, she completed Leadership Woodward and was selected as the Assistant Academic Dean. In 2018, she became the Academic Dean. She continues to teach a senior seminar, Supreme Court Cases in Civil Liberties, which uses the Bill of Rights as a framework to explore the interaction of Constitutional Law and Civil Rights in our society.