My name is Kevin Caffrey and I’m the Senior Associate Registrar at University of Mary Washington (UMW) in Fredericksburg, VA.  I was born in Queens, NY and raised on Long Island, where I lived for 33 years before relocating with my family to Virginia in 2009.  I earned both my master’s degree (M.A., English) and my bachelor’s degree (B.A., English and Psychology) from Long Island University (LIU) Post Campus.  I’ve been working in higher education since 2000, serving in several different capacities at public and private institutions.  In 2022, I earned my Ed.D. in Higher Education Leadership from VCU.  I’m also a singer/songwriter and have released several independent albums over the past few decades. My latest ones, Alchemy, and its counterpart, Alternative Alchemy, were released in 2022 and 2023 respectively and I’m currently working on another one hopefully to be released at the end of this year. If you’re out and about at a brewery or winery in Virginia, you may very well catch me playing at one. 

My areas of interest in research include leadership, communication, empathy, and equity. Recently published articles include “What’s Their Story? To Help Save the Humanities, Let’s Listen to English Majors” (Journal of Educational Research and Practice) and “Speaking to the Head and the Heart: Prioritizing Empathetic Communication in the Post-COVID Workplace” (Business and Professional Communication). I was recently quoted in Business Insider about my research on English majors, and I appeared on Mary Talks in 2025 to discuss empathetic communication in the workplace. I’ve also appeared on With Good Reason, WOSU’s All Sides and Empathy Unbound with Andrew Phipps. In 2023, I designed and began teaching a freshmen seminar at UMW entitled You Have To Listen To This: Connecting Through Music about why we gravitate towards the music that we do and why sharing music with others is essential to cultivate social and interpersonal connections with others. I’m currently working on a book proposal inspired by the course.

In my spare time, I enjoy reading, running and swimming, following the Baltimore Ravens, getting very frustrated with jigsaw puzzles, and spending time with my wife Debra and my son Aidan.