My Story
Nationally recognized as a passionate thought-leader, Dr. Bernard Franklin is currently a Fellow with Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative. Most recently he was Vice President of Student Life at Mount St. Mary’s University (MD). Franklin has served as Special Assistant to the President, and Assistant Vice President at Kansas State University. He was also founding Director of the Kansas State College Advising Corps, a college access program, and Director of Higher Education Programs for Shawnee Mission (KS) School District (2015-18).
A 1976 graduate of Kansas State University, Franklin is considered one of the first African Americans to be elected student body president on a public university in the U.S. Franklin went on to make Kansas history books by becoming the youngest person ever appointed to the Kansas State Board of Regents at 24, and the youngest Chair of the Board at age 28. He has been a Fellow for the Study of the United States Presidency and was recommended by Mrs. Coretta Scott King to serve on an Advisory Commission to the Carter Administration with Martin Luther King III, and other prominent national leaders.
Franklin was employed at A.T.&T. and Commerce Bank in Kansas City, MO, and at Frost Bank in San Antonio, TX. In 1984, he began his higher education career at the University of South Alabama as Director of Student Activities & Minority Student Affairs, and followed with a similar position at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL. He served as Assistant Dean of Student Life & Director of Leadership Development Programs at KSU (1990-96).
At the National Center for Fathering, Franklin served as Vice President and Urban Director (1996-99), where he was on the cutting edge in establishing education programs for urban men. He completed a month journey to West Africa (Ghana and Ivory Coast) to conduct field research on the fathering heritage of African American men for an unpublished book. He was presented the Vision Award for his "pioneering work in educating men on the importance of fatherhood" by the Morehouse College Research Institute. Franklin was honored as Kansas City Royals “Father of the Year” (2006).
Franklin served as Assistant to the President at Donnelly College (2001), an urban Catholic community college where he resurrected the Associates Degree program at an area prison, and he taught psychology. Franklin has served as Executive Director of Kauffman Scholars (2003-05), a $70 million, 20-year initiative funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to guide and support urban Kansas City 7th graders to high school graduation, and college graduation. Franklin has also served as President of Metropolitan Community College-Penn Valley (2005-2010; KC), where he stabilized enrollment and assisted in the strategic planning, design and building of a state-of-the-art allied health teaching facility. He taught psychology classes at the College, and he lead the College founding and sponsorship of KIPP Kansas City Urban Charter School.
Franklin presented several papers entitled, “In Search of the Missing Piece: Men’s Issues in Leadership Development”, and “African American Men at Risk” at the Summer Leadership Symposium sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation and the University of Maryland-College Park (1991). He was recipient of the American College Personnel Association’s (ACPA) Roberta Christie Essay Contest award with a topic of “Teaching, Educating and Developing Men: The Missing Piece in Student Development Education in Colleges & Universities”. He served as Chair of ACPA’s College Men’s Development Task Force of the Standing Committee for Men (1992-94). Recognizing his work in college men’s development, he was invited to participate in a U.S. Department of Education-Dwight D. Eisenhower Program entitled “Empowering the Next Generation: New Approaches to Leadership and Leadership Development” (1994), led by Helen and Alexander Astin, prominent college student development researchers.
Franklin served as Chaplin for the NFL Kansas City Chiefs and was a member of their Player Development and counseling team. Franklin is an advisor to Vision Pursue, an organization whose mission is to dramatically improve the way people experience life by improving their mindset to carefully develop the Performance Mindset™ that drives results for organizations and sports teams.
He was a “Midwest Voices” columnist for the Kansas City Star (2006). He was twice honored one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans in Kansas City (1998, 2009) for his work in education. His work and passion was recognized by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce with the Distinguished Leadership Award (2009) for contributions to urban education, and the Kansas City Downtown Council awarded him an “Urban Hero” for his education work (2009).
Franklin served on numerous community boards in Kansas City, including chair of the board at Gordon Parks Elementary Charter School; the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City; Reaching Out From Within, a transformational inmate support program; chair of the Satchel Paige Foundation; and on the board of Truman Medical Center, KC’s regional indigent hospital. While President of MCC-Penn Valley, he served as chair of the Midwest regional Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee (2005-2010), and on the Community Advisory Board of the Federal Reserve Bank.
After completing the trauma/resilience theory model of Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) Professional Certificate Training Program at the well-regarded Dr. Karyn Purvis Institute on Child Development at Texas Christian University (TCU; 2011-12), Franklin has taught courses, led workshops and consulted on “Trauma, Resilience and Neuroscience”. He earned a “Change Coach Certificate” following an 18-month Community Coalition Coaching/Leadership Training Program (Center for Creative Leadership; Greensboro, NC; 2013). Franklin is a certified facilitator/trainer with the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI; 2018), the premier cross-culturally valid assessment for building and sustaining organizational cultural competence. He earned a Leader/Facilitator Training Certificate completing a two-week training of the “Structural Racism & Youth Development: Issues, Challenges, and Implications” from the Aspen Institute (2010).
Continuing his learning, Franklin successfully completed (2016) a post doctoral program level neuroscience program, Learning and the Brain: The Implications of Neuroscience for Educators (KSU). For course requirements, he submitted his final research paper entitled: Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning: Brain Science Informing Education Reform.
In addition, Franklin has trained with the Trauma Recovery Associates, Healing the Mind, Body, & Spirit: A Therapeutic Response to Adult Survivors of Childhood Abuse and Neglect, (September 2017, Portage, Michigan). This training incorporates faith elements to trauma, resilience and neuroscience to train practitioners on how to bring healing to victims of trauma and chaos.
Franklin has served as co-chair of the Trauma/Resilience Education Work Group of Resilient KC, an initiative of the Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City which sought to encourage the development of trauma/resilient informed education learning communities in the bi-state regional community. Most recently, Franklin accepted the invitation to serve on the board of Alive and Well Missouri & Kansas. Alive and Well is a new bi-state initiative focused on reducing the impact of toxic stress and trauma on our health and well-being. Franklin serves on the national board of Pathways to Promise, which connects mental health, faith and culture to serve low income communities in America.
He has served on numerous boards that serve the poor and marginalized in the Kansas City region. He served on the Health Care Foundation which supported the needs of the very poor, and on the board of Truman Medical Center, the indigent serving hospital. He has served on two urban charter school boards, Gordon Parks Elementary Charter school which serves the most challenging children in the KC region, and University Academy, a K-12 charter school founded by the H&R Bloch and Helzberg (Jewelers) families. These Charter Schools have implemented and are influenced by his work around trauma and social/emotional informed teaching and learning.
Franklin earned an MS in Counseling and Behavioral Studies (1989) from the University of South Alabama, and a Ph.D. in Counseling and Higher Education Administration, with an outside emphasis in Family Studies (KSU 1996). He has consulted and presented at numerous higher education and K-12 institutions, and many national and international organizations on a wide range of education, leadership, diversity, trauma and neuroscience. Franklin has consulted and keynoted national and regional conferences, and conducted professional development to numerous higher education and K-12 institutions, and many national and international organizations on a wide range of education, leadership, diversity, trauma and neuroscience. He is the widowed and proud father of a daughter Christina (26, VA), and three sons, Brandon (42, Topeka), Morgan (32, Topeka), and Blake (31, KC); and seven adorable grandchildren (Topeka).