Violet Marie Malone is a woman who considers learning to be a lifelong process. She is an active participant in the world around her.

Dr. Malone currently serves as professor of Adult and Higher Education in the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. She came to the University in 1991 as head of the Department of Education Administration and Foundations after serving as the head of the Extension Education Unit in the College of Agriculture at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Malone has spent most of her career working with adults in some phase of transition. She conducts shortcourses, workshops and seminars on Learning in Adulthood, Changes and Transitions Across the Lifespan, Leadership in Community Based Organizations, Voluntary Work, Teaching and Learning in Adulthood and “Good Leaders Make Great Lovers” series. She has conducted experiential learning sessions with men and women in such countries as Sri Lanka, Jordan, Kenya, Zambia, Belize and several islands of the Caribbean as well as Canada and the Netherlands and in every state in this country. She is a published author of textbooks and train-the-trainer manuals.

She is the former president of the Adult Education Association of the USA and former Chairperson of the National Coalition for Literacy. Her name is listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who, American woman. She is active in her community: president of the YWCA (C-U), AAUW (C-U), and member United Way of Illinois, Board of Education for Corrections member, the local Volunteer Center and Human Rights Task Force. In addition she was appointed a Public Member of the Council of Education for the AVMA.

Although she is a former president of the local chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, she was named the National Honorary Soror, Iota Phi Lambda Sorority as well as the Community Woman of the Year (1999) by the Puget Sound Chapter, American Business Women Association.

She was inducted into the Academy of Creative Teaching, Lucerne, Switzerland. In 1999 she was named to the International Hall of Fame for Adult and Continuing Education Society .In 2002, she was an invited member to the Oxford University, England Round Table.

Her academic background includes four degrees: Elementary Education, Guidance and Counseling, Adult Education and the Ph.D. in Adult Education. She is a native of Chicago, Illinois and resides in Ferndale WA.