“I always knew I wanted to be a professor at NKU.”

Professor Kimberly Clayton-Code (’95) has spent practically her entire life at Northern Kentucky University. She and her family moved to northern Kentucky when her father, Gary Clayton, received a job offer in the Department of Economics and Finance as a professor of Economics.

“My father used to bring me along when he taught his Economics classes, which I just thought was so cool,” she says. “From then on, I knew I wanted to be a college professor at NKU.”

Not only did Clayton-Code tag along to her father’s classes, but she tutored her brothers in an NKU classroom while her father worked during summer semesters.

“I’ve been teaching in an NKU classroom since I was a kid!” she says.

After receiving her undergraduate degree from Purdue University, Clayton-Code came back to NKU to get her master’s degree in Elementary Education while working as a graduate residential assistant and living on campus.

Dr. Clayton-Code considers NKU education to be the family business because of how ingrained she and her family have become in the university community. A graduate of NKU, she works to teach future educators as a professor in the College of Education. She also serves as the co-founder and director of the Institute for Talent Development and Gifted Studies.

Her husband, an NKU alumnus, works as a teacher in the northern Kentucky community. And their son plans to attend NKU in the fall and pursue a degree in Business.