Dr. Sarah Westfall

Coach Overview:

Sarah Westfall, Ph.D. provides highly individualized executive coaching, consulting, and assessment services to higher education leaders.  Her abiding interest is the success and vitality of colleges and universities.  Strong, competent, and well-supported institutional leaders are essential to this goal. 

Sarah served as an institutional administrator for 35 years in a variety of institutional settings including Big Ten, regional public, two-year, and private residential liberal arts colleges and universities.  She retired early after 15 years as Vice President for Student Development and Dean of Students at Kalamazoo College and has been working exclusively with institutions and their leaders since 2021. 

Sarah has written extensively, her most recent publication being “Using Coaching Skills to Lead and Mentor Faculty Colleagues” with Tammy Gocial, Ph.D.  She’s taught at the graduate and undergraduate levels, has been deeply involved with accreditation work with the Higher Learning Commission including training new Peer Reviewers and Team Chairs, and has received honors including being named to the Fulbright Senior Specialist roster and being named a Pillar of the Profession by NASPA.

Sarah received her bachelor’s degree in communication from DePauw University, her master’s and doctoral degrees from Indiana University, and completed the Management Development Program at Harvard University. Sarah is an executive coach certified at the PCC level through the International Coaching Federation and she is certified at the advanced level to offer and interpret the Hogan Assessment. 

Statement of Coaching Philosophy:

Sarah views coaching as a disciplined, inquiry-based process of identifying and achieving individual and institutional goals.  It accelerates progress toward goals through the use of assessment and other data, the experience and values of the client, the realities of the client’s context, and a clear focus on insight that leads to action.  Coaching is highly individualized and rooted in a partnership characterized by candor, respect, accountability, and a bias toward progress.