Dr. Oltman is an experienced educator with over twenty years spent in the classroom and in educational leadership positions. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and Program Director of the Master of Science in Organizational Leadership and the Bachelor of Science in Leadership Studies programs.

She is a licensed attorney and earned a Ph.D. in Educational Studies. She also maintains a professional Nebraska 7-12 teaching (English and Political Science) in addition to a 7-12 principal’s/administrative certificate.

As a public school teacher, she had the opportunity to develop curriculum, teach reading and writing courses, and manage multiple aspects of assessment. She also supervised multiple K-12 student teaching candidates throughout Nebraska and Iowa.

She regularly presents at local and national conferences, including the National Conference for Teachers of English and the Education Law Association. She is an Executive Committee Member on the NCTE’s Standing Committee Against Censorship, a group dedicated to the protection of the First Amendment in our nation’s schools.

She is the author or co-author of five books including

• Violence in Student Writing: A Guide for School Administrators (2010),
• Law Meets Literature: A Novel Approach to the English Classroom (2015),
• Prepare to Chair: Leading the Thesis and Dissertation Process (2019),
• The Themes that Bind Us: Simplifying U.S. Supreme Court Cases for the Social Studies Classroom (2018),
• The Supreme 15: Cases and Materials for the AP Government and Politics Exam (2019) and
• What’s Your Leadership Story: A School Leader’s Guide to Aligning How You Lead with Who You Are (2021).

Her research interests include studying the intersections of law, education, and leadership.