Dr. Mike Davis is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, where he also serves on the Executive Team as the Special Assistant to the President for Compliance. As a TRiO Upward Bound Math/Science Alum, Dr. Davis was a first generation college graduate, and has spent his entire career in postsecondary education after obtaining a law degree from the University of Oklahoma and later obtaining a Ph.D. in leadership from the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, KY. Dr. Davis has served on the Board of Governors of the Oklahoma Bar Association, and is currently an Associate Member of the Oklahoma Board of Bar Examiners. He is an active behavioral science researcher in the areas of emotional intelligence, affective science (the study of emotional experience), and the connection between empathy and effective organizational leadership. He has won multiple accolades for his research, including the Southeastern Oklahoma State University Faculty Senate Award for Outstanding Research and Scholarly Activity in 2023, and the Oklahoma Bar Association’s Maurice Merrill Golden Quill Award for his Oklahoma Bar Journal articles in 2018 and 2023. As a University compliance officer, Dr. Davis has more than a decade of experience as a Title IX Coordinator. He has founded his own civil rights consulting firm, Equity Consulting LLC, in an effort to assist postsecondary educational institutions across the state to meet their training requirements and investigative challenges across a wide range of civil rights compliance matters. For this work, he has been recognized by the Journal Record as an “Achiever Under 40” in 2022, and was added to the “Power List” of young legal professionals in Oklahoma in 2023. In his capacity as an Associate Professor, Dr. Davis is a designated mentor in the McNair Scholars program at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, and a mentor in the John Massey Leadership Scholars program, which is a scholarship endowment targeted to high-potential students who have overcome hardship in their lives.