Dr. Joyce Fouts

Vice President and Vice Chair for the Board of Directors

Dr. Joyce Fouts was the Executive Director of the Galileo Leadership Consortium for 22 years serving 33 school districts and two community colleges in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties in Michigan.  She collaboratively designed, facilitated and evaluated the Leadership Academy’s program.    The Leadership Academy was launched in 1997 with funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and is now sustained by the member organizations.  

Over 1200 educators completed the successful two-year program that focused on developing communities of learners and servant leaders.   The participants examined exemplary practices including project-based learning, action research, design thinking with an emphasis on system thinking, empathy, equity, diversity, and restorative justice.  The academy’s curriculum promoted collective efficacy, growth mindset beliefs, critical thinking driven by questions that contributed to the leaders becoming proactive change agents in their organizations to ensure high levels of deep learning for all students. 

Fouts worked for 25 years as an educational consultant in Michigan at the Wayne County Regionals Educational Service Agency where she coached, provided consultation and professional learning sessions to school leadership teams including principals and central office personnel in the areas of leadership, school improvement, curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  

Her leadership beliefs were formed from the study and training of the Seven Habits of Highly Effect People. Fouts was selected to become a 7 Habits facilitator and had the honor of being trained by the author of the program Dr. Stephen Covey. For the past 30 years Fouts has had the joy of facilitating the 7 Habits trainings for over 1500 educators who reported that the knowledge, skills, and experiences gained from the program transformed both their professional and personal lives.  The participants indicated that the program empowered them to be more proactive, listen to understand and to live out of their imaginations not their memories.   

Fouts received her Doctor of Education and Masters in curriculum leadership at Wayne State University.  She did her undergraduate studies at Western Michigan University.  

Fouts began her career in education and became a passionate history, civics, and psychology high school teacher and created student-centered classrooms. She has been an adjunct professor for both Oakland University and Madonna University for the past ten years.  She is a voracious reader and believes: “to lead one must read. “ 

Fouts is married to Mike Bugenski who works for COGNIA an international nonprofit   accreditation organization.   She is the proud mother of one son Alex who works as an Executive Producer and lives in Santa Monica, California.   She is looking forward to attending his wedding (that has been rescheduled twice because of Covid!) on May 20, 2022.