Office Hours with John Gardner

Episode 74 - Laurie A. Carter Improvisation and Innovation

Laurie A. Carter joined Lawrence University as its 17th president on July 1, 2021, bringing with her more than 25 years of leadership experience in higher education. In her short time as President, Carter has brought a sense of urgency to the Lawrence community. Recognizing the need for Lawrence to be well-positioned in an ever-changing higher education landscape, Carter implemented student-centered Guiding Coalitions to facilitate more effective change implementation at the university. Addition...

Episode 73 - Chad Brown Serving the Community

Dr. Chad M. Brown became the sixth president of Zane State College on July 1, 2015. Dr. Brown has served in a variety of leadership roles, including provost and executive vice president since coming to Zane State College in 2005. He has a strong commitment to, and a history of success in, shaping a data-rich culture. He led the College’s efforts in continuous quality improvement during its 14 years as an AQIP institution. This involved centralizing data collection, expanding information gatherin...

Episode 72 - Charles Weiss Academic Persistence

Episode 71 - Rebecca Mushtare and John Kane Effective Teaching

Rebecca Mushtare is the associate dean of Graduate Studies and a professor of interaction design at SUNY Oswego. With John Kane, she co-hosts the Tea for Teaching podcast which she helped co-found when she was the associate director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching. Rebecca’s primary research areas are inclusive design, design for older adults, and digital accessibility. John Kane is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching ...

Episode 70 - J. Cameron West Reclaiming the Mission

J. Cameron West (Cam) has served as the 14th President of Huntingdon College, Montgomery, Alabama, since June 1, 2003. Prior to assuming the Huntingdon presidency, he was a vice president and dean at Brevard College, Brevard, North Carolina, from 1999-2003. He was a parish minister from 1978 to 1999 in United Methodist congregations across his native North Carolina and was the Bishop's Ecumenical Officer in the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church from 1996 - 1999. We...

Episode 69 - Josh Wyner The Community College Promise

Josh Wyner is founder and executive director of the College Excellence Program (CEP) at the Aspen Institute, where he also serves as a vice president. CEP aims to advance college and university practices, policies, and leadership that significantly improve student outcomes, with a focus on students who are historically underserved in higher education. Josh has spent the past two decades designing and building new organizations that promote talent development and social mobility. He has authored ...

Episode 68- Manuel João Costa Student Success in Portugal

Manuel João Costa is an Associate Professor at the School of Medicine, and currently Pro-Rector for Educational Innovation and Student Affairs at the University of Minho and coordinator of the University of Minho’s center for innovation and development to teaching and learning (IDEA-UMinho). Manuel is a graduate in Biochemistry and holds a PhD in Biomedical Sciences, both from the University of Porto. Manuel’s teaching areas are biochemistry and molecular biology, and education in the health sci...

Episode 67 - Duncan Pritchard Developing Intellectual Character

Duncan Pritchard is UC Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Knowledge, Technology & Society at the University of California, Irvine. He was previously Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Eidyn research center at the University of Edinburgh. His monographs include Epistemic Luck (Oxford UP, 2005), The Nature and Value of Knowledg e (co-authored, Oxford UP, 2010), Epistemological Disjunctivism (Oxford UP, 2012), Epistemic Angst: Radical Skepticism and th...

Episode 66 - Steve Desir Equity in the Graduate Student Experience

Steve Desir is an Assistant Research Professor in the Pullias Center for Higher Education at the USC Rossier School of Education. His research interests include racial equity in college admissions, organizational change, and the use of theory-based psychological interventions to facilitate behavioral change. More specifically, Steve is interested in whether insights from social psychology, sociology, and behavioral economics can be used to improve educational experiences for minoritized groups. ...

Episode 65 - Charles Schroeder The Student Learning Imperative

Charles Schroeder received his B.A. (Psychology and History) and M.A. (Psychology) degrees from Austin College and his doctorate (Education, 1972) from Oregon State University. For over three decades, he served as the Chief Student Affairs Officer at Mercer University, Saint Louis University, Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Missouri-Columbia (MU). In 2001, he was appointed a Professor of Higher Education in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis Department at the Un...

Episosde 64 - Jamey Rorison The Postsecondary Value Commission

Jamey Rorison, Ph.D., is a senior program officer on the U.S. Program Data team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he leads efforts to advance a field-led movement to increase equitable postsecondary value, building on the work of the Postsecondary Value Commission , as well as a portfolio seeking to improve postsecondary data quality, use, and infrastructure at the local, state, and national levels. Prior to joining the foundation, Rorison served as director of research and polic...

Episode 63 - Thomas Parham Defining and Framing Higher Education

Thomas A. Parham, Ph.D., is a family man who resides in the Southern California area with his wife, Davida. Dr. Parham is the 11th president of California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), a highly diverse, metropolitan university primarily serving the South Central and South Bay areas of Los Angeles County. Established in 1960, CSUDH is one of the 23 campuses that comprise the California State University system, the largest system of public higher education in the nation. Dr. Parham pr...

Episode 62 - Rolundus R. Rice Becoming the Example

Dr. Rolundus R. Rice is a thought leader, orator, professor and university administrator. Dr. Rice has used these platforms to inspire thousands of students to earn high school diplomas, baccalaureate and advanced degrees by sharing his firsthand experiences as a troubled youth who spent his elementary years in the behavior and learning disorders programs in the Dekalb County School System in Metropolitan Atlanta before dropping out of high school. Rice’s “Pilgrimage to Purpose” narrative arc, w...

Episode 61 - Bill Goodykoontz Innovations in Storytelling

Bio: I learned to read from my grandmother’s Addams Family collections. My plans to become a professional basketball player sadly stalled when my growth did, around the seventh grade. I have a bachelor of arts degree in English from James Madison University and a Master of Advanced Studies degree in Film and Media Studies from Arizona State University. I’ve been a police reporter, a city and county government reporter, a features columnist, a sports columnist, TV critic, editor, movie critic and...

Episode 60 - Michael Moffitt Law and Liberal Arts

Michael Moffitt shares insights on legal education and work at the undergraduate level. Learn about his innovative opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations.

Episode 59 - Diane Reyna Comprehensive Student Experience

DIANE REYNA was raised at her father’s village of Taos Pueblo in Northern New Mexico; her mother was from the Pueblo of Okay Owingeh. She is an experienced facilitator, college instructor, and trainer. She retired from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2015, where she provided comprehensive support and services to first year students. Prior to working at the Institute, she spent 20 years as a videographer, producer, and director in the field of video news and documentary production. She d...

Episode 58 - Dennis Pruitt Establishing Campus Culture

Dennis Pruitt, vice president for student affairs and vice provost at the University of South Carolina, has led the University’s Division of Student Affairs and Academic Support since 1983. He designed the university’s first and award-winning enrollment-management model, developed what is widely regarded as one of the earliest and most thorough strategic-planning processes in the field and significantly enhanced the university’s student-service programs. In 2011, NASPA Student Affairs Administra...

Episode 57 - Jim Hundrieser Yes to Innovation

Dr. Jim Hundrieser is the inaugural vice president for consulting and business development at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). At NACUBO, he matches higher education institutions with new strategies to that focus on growing revenue, building capacity, providing pragmatic solutions, conducting operational assessments, and increasing student success and completion. Over his 30-year career in higher education, Jim has served in a variety of roles, from ...

Episode 56 - Nancy Cable Cultivating Student Agency

A nationally recognized leader in higher education, educational access, financial aid and affordability, and liberal arts and sciences curricula, Dr. Cable served as Dean at Denison University from 1977-1986, Guilford College from 1986-1991, and Vice President and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Davidson College from 1991-2005. Together with Davidson trustees, faculty, staff, and student leaders, she helped to lead efforts to advance selectivity, diversity, financial capacity, and to impl...

Episode 55 - Amanda Haney-Cech Engaging Academic Support

For nearly a decade, Amanda worked in TRiO programs, spending a year with Talent Search and the next nine leading an Upward Bound project. In 2008, she joined the staff at Marietta College directing the Academic Resource Center (ARC). As the Director of the ARC, Amanda has led the center in tremendous growth including such activities as developing the PioPREP Academy bridge program, the Campus Food Pantry, and co-advising the Tri-Alpha first-generation national honor society to name a few. Under...

Episode 54 - Tim Renick Data for Change

Timothy Renick is the founding Executive Director of the National Institute for Student Success and Professor of Religious Studies at Georgia State University. Between 2008-2020, he directed the student success efforts of the university, overseeing a 62% improvement in graduation rates and the elimination of all equity gaps based on students' race, ethnicity, or income level. For six consecutive years, Georgia State has graduated more African American students with bachelor’s degrees than any ot...

Episode 53 - Rusty Monhollon Transfer Advocacy

Rusty Monhollon is President and Executive Director of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education. He began his duties on July 15, 2019. Between 2011-2019, Monhollon was the Assistant Commissioner for Academic Affairs at the Missouri Department of Higher Education. There he oversaw the design, implementation, and monitoring of public policies related to academic programs, assessment of student success, and institutional performance. He led the Missouri Reverse Transfer Initiative, which r...

Episode 52 - Catherine Andersen Passion and a Plan

Catherine Finneran Andersen, Ph.D. has served as an advisor to the Gardner Institute for over ten years. She has worked with numerous colleges and university guiding institutional efforts in FoE, four year and transfer as well as Gateways to Completion (G2C). Currently, she is the Vice Provost and is a full professor at the University of Baltimore and is responsible for curriculum, General Education, accreditation, institutional research, excellence in teaching and learning, retention, student s...

Episode 51 - An Interview with John Gardner

John is an educator, university professor and administrator, founder of two non-profit organizations, author, public speaker, consultant, public intellectual and thought leader, change agent, student retention specialist, first-year, sophomore, transfer, and senior year students’ advocate, initiator and scholar of multiple undergraduate education reform movements and…a continuing active participant in the unfinished civil rights movement. He serves as Founder and Executive Chair of the John N. G...

Episode 50 - George Kuh Innovative Tools in Higher Education

George D. Kuh is Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at Indiana University (IU). He is founding director of IU’s Center for Postsecondary Research, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), and the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). George has more than 400 publications and made several hundred presentations on topics related to assessment strategies, institutional improvement, college student engagement, and campus cultures. He has consulted wit...

Episode 49 - Ed Ayers- Engaging American History

Edward Ayers has been named National Professor of the Year, received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama at the White House, served as president of the Organization of American Historians, and won the Bancroft Prize for distinguished writing in American history. Ayers is the executive director of New American History, an online project designed to help students and teachers to see the nation’s history in new ways. He is university professor and president emeritus at the University...

Episode 48 - James Anderson Lifelong Mentorships

From 2008 - 2019 Dr. James A. Anderson served as Chancellor and Professor of Psychology at Fayetteville State University (UNC). He previously served as a senior administrator at SUNY Albany, Texas A&M University, and North Carolina State University. He was a tenured full professor of Psychology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Chairperson of the Department of Psychology at Xavier University of New Orleans. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University and a B.A. from Villanova Univers...

Episode 47 - Kurt Ewen Rediscovery and Reflection

Kurt Edward Ewen was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. He earned an Associate of Arts degree from Valencia Community College and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy from St. Meinrad College in St. Meinrad, Indiana. Graduate and post-graduate studies took him to the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, in Leuven, Belgium where he completed a Master’s degree in Religious Studies and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology (Sacrae Theologiae Licentiatus or S.T.L., a 2-year post-graduate degree) in Philos...

Episode 46 - Victoria McGillin Advising for Success

Vicki is an Associate Vice President at the Gardner Institute, where she has served as an Advisor and Fellow since her retirement as Provost and Professor of Psychology at Otterbein University. She is the Process Coordinator for the Retention Performance Management process. She serves as an institutional Advisor and Fellow in both of these processes. She also serves as a Senior Advisor on the Gateways to Completion process. Prior to her retirement, Vicki led curricular, programmatic and business...

Episode 45 - Aaron Brower Responsive Design in Education

Aaron Brower is the founding Executive Director for the University of Wisconsin Extended Campus, and the Senior Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the UW System. UWEX has built a national reputation for award-winning innovative online programs for adults and professionals. Among UWEX’s innovations is the UW Flexible Option, the first-in-the-country (and still only) competency-based educational program run throughout an entire statewide system. From 2012-2018, Brower served as Provo...