Dr. Lesley Travers
Dr. Lesley Travers
Dr. Lesley Travers is the ninth president of Eastern Wyoming College in Torrington, Wyoming. Prior to assuming her post at Eastern Wyoming College, President Travers spent nine years as the dean of the School of Business and Industry at Casper College.
Before becoming a dean, Dr. Travers was the chair of the addictionology department at Casper College for seven years receiving the Rosenthal Outstanding Educator Award in 2008. During this time, Dr. Travers also owned a private practice office in Casper in which she specialized in marriage and family therapy and trauma work.
President Travers graduated from the University of Wyoming with a Doctor of Philosophy in Counseling and Higher Education specializing in marriage and family therapy. Her dissertation, Demographic Characteristics and Patterns of Substance Use in a Rural Community, compared rural and urban demographic characteristics of alcohol-only and alcohol-and-drug dependent participants in a treatment sample drawn from ten community substance abuse treatment providers in one county in a rural, frontier state and data from selected comparison groups from the Drug Evaluation Network System (DENS).
She graduated from University of Wyoming/Casper College with her Master of Science in Counselor Education with research, Impact of Brain Injury on Family Systems.
Dr. Travers completed her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Montana in Missoula with her thesis topic, Discrimination and Reversal Learning Trials in Macaque Mulatta in the Wisconsin General Testing Apparatus, publishing two articles from this research.
Dr. Travers is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Licensed Addictions Therapist holding a Master Addictions Counselor, and Marriage and Family Therapist with the state of Wyoming and a Nationally Certified Counselor. Additionally, Dr. Travers is a Level II Eye Movement and Desensitization Reprocessing Therapist. She has served on the Wyoming Mental Health Professions Licensing Board for 12 years, serving under two governors. President Travers belongs to the Wyoming Counseling Association serving as president (two separate terms) and secretary for two terms.
She is a founding member of Chi Sigma Iota, Mu Nu Tau Counseling Honorary and served as president its first year at the University of Wyoming. She is a member of the American Counseling Association and the International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors and has served as a volunteer reviewer for the National Board of Certified Counselors. Dr. Travers has provided assistance to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife for Wolf, Grizzly and Canadian Lynx re-introductions and de-listing hearings since 1993, providing effective leadership, mediation expertise, and an opportunity for the public-at-large to give testimony, ensure accurate recording of the entire proceedings, and mandate public safety during emotionally-charged and controversial hearings. In 2017, Dr. Travers provided assistance to the Casper Police Department assisting with two public meetings involving sexual assault.
President Travers has presented on addictions, human resources, trauma, student learning and service learning in Wyoming and internationally in Athens, Greece and Barcelona, Spain. Prior to her service to community colleges, Dr. Travers was the Executive Director of Brain Injury Association of Wyoming for seven years; Director of Administration of JETS Technology, General Business Manager of the Northern Arapaho Trust, and the Executive Director of Wyoming Senior Citizens, Inc. for 3 years. She has worked with very diverse groups, providing counseling to women, Laotians, Spanish Migrant farmworkers and their families, several Native American tribes and seniors.
Areas of interest include farming and ranching, service learning, cooking and quilting.