About
Veronica Estes serves as the AB Title IX Coordinator and Director of Civil Rights Compliance — the senior University official responsible for AB's compliance with Title IX, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, ADA, the Clery Act, and the SaVE Act. She manages the AB Title IX process from initial intake through investigation, hearing, determination, and appeal, and oversees the institutional response to all reports of sex- and gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence.
A native of Logan County, West Virginia, Estes holds an M.S.W. (Master of Social Work) from West Virginia University (2009) and a B.S.W. (cum laude) from Concord University (2006). She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) in West Virginia and Virginia, an ATIXA-certified Title IX Investigator, an ATIXA-certified Title IX Coordinator, and a NACUA Civil Rights Compliance Fellow.
Before AB she spent ten years as a clinical social worker at the Davis Memorial Hospital Behavioral Health Unit and as a Title IX investigator at WVU. She came to AB in 2019 because — as she tells it — "a small institution can do this work right in a way that a large one cannot. There are no anonymous offices here. There is only my office, and you have to come in and sit in it."
Education
- 2009M.S.W., Master of Social Work — West Virginia University. Clinical concentration.
- 2006B.S.W. (cum laude) — Concord University.
- —Licenses & Certifications: LCSW (WV & VA), ATIXA Title IX Investigator, ATIXA Title IX Coordinator, NACUA Civil Rights Fellow.
Teaching
Estes co-teaches the AB first-year mandatory online Title IX training, the upper-division Title IX investigator certification course (for resident assistants and student leaders), and the annual employee training.
- AB 105AB Mandatory Title IX Training (Online)Required of all incoming students each fall. Includes a follow-up small-group session in the first-year seminar.
- PSY 410Trauma-Informed Practice in Civil Rights InvestigationsA senior elective offered jointly with Psychology and Social Work. Limited to 12 students. Includes a 30-hour observation practicum.
Practice & Clinical Voice
Estes's identity is the practitioner-administrator running an active Title IX and civil-rights office at a small University. Since her arrival, AB has resolved 142 formal Title IX matters, modernized the entire civil-rights compliance infrastructure, and earned a clean federal OCR review (2024). She is a frequent presenter at ATIXA, NACUA, and the WV Higher Education Policy Commission compliance conferences.
She maintains a 4-hour weekly clinical caseload at the Davis Memorial Hospital Behavioral Health Clinic (adult trauma cases) to keep her clinical license active and — as she puts it — "because a Title IX Coordinator who has stopped seeing clinical clients has stopped understanding the people who walk into her office."
Selected Publications & Presentations
- 2024"The Small-College Title IX Office: A Field Manual." ATIXA Journal.
- 2023"Trauma-Informed Practice in Civil Rights Investigations." NACUA Notes.
- 2025Plenary, ATIXA Annual Conference, "What Small Institutions Can Teach Large Ones."
Honors & Service
- 2024AB Clean OCR Review (no findings).
- 2023ATIXA Investigator of the Year, Mid-Atlantic.
- 2019Appointed Title IX Coordinator.
- 2018WVU MSW Distinguished Alumni Award.
My office is the office that nobody wants to come into. I cannot change that. But I can make sure that the person who walks in is treated, every single time, with the dignity and patience that they have earned the moment they crossed the threshold.— Veronica Estes, MSW, LCSW
Beyond the Classroom
Estes lives in Buckhannon with her husband John (a Methodist minister) and their three children. She is an active volunteer with the Barbour County Domestic Violence Shelter, a Sunday-school teacher at the Buckhannon First UMC, and a serious vegetable gardener.
She is also the unofficial AB faculty-and-staff dog whisperer (she has hosted four AB faculty rescue-dog adoption parties since 2020) and a competitive amateur ballroom dancer with her husband.