Dr. Kenneth Morales

Kenneth Morales is the Graduate Student Ombuds. Graduate students come to him with advisor conflicts, authorship disputes, assistantship problems, and questions about how university policy applies to them. He is a confidential, independent, neutral, and informal resource: he listens, helps students sort out their options, explains policy, coaches them for difficult conversations, and can arrange voluntary informal mediation. Talking with him doesn't start a formal grievance or put the university on notice.

Morales became Alkimi's first Graduate Student Ombuds in 2021. Before that he spent two decades as a clinical psychologist and faculty member at Wendover University, where he directed the graduate training clinic and mediated disputes between faculty and students. He practices under the International Ombuds Association's standards. "Most people who come to see me aren't looking for someone to take their side," he says. "They want to understand their options before they decide what to do."

Morales holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Tamarack State University and a PhD in clinical psychology from Corwin University. He plays classical guitar and is, by his own account, a much better listener than guitarist.