Return to Institute Homepage All Sessions

Bryan N. Alexander is a widely respected futurist who is in demand as a speaker and consultant. His work focuses on how technology transforms education. Currently, he is a senior scholar at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

From 2002 to 2014, Alexander served the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) as senior fellow, director of emerging technologies, and co-director of a regional center. He began his academic career as an assistant professor at Centenary College of Louisiana, where he organized an information literacy initiative and established multi-campus interdisciplinary courses.

Quoted regularly in the national press, Alexander has been interviewed by the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and U.S. News & World Report, among others. His most recent book, Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in January 2020. He has already begun work on Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Age of Climate Crisis (2022). Alexander received his BA, MA, and PhD degrees in English Literature from the University of Michigan.

Sandy Baum is a nonresident senior fellow at the Urban Institute and professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College. She has written and spoken extensively on issues relating to college access, college pricing, student aid policy, student debt, affordability, and other aspects of higher education finance.

Baum co-authored the College Board’s annual publications Trends in Student Aid and Trends in College Pricing from 2002 through 2019. Through the College Board and the Brookings Institution, she has chaired major study groups that released proposals for reforming federal and state student aid. She is the principal researcher on the Urban Institute’s website on college affordability, and her recent work includes Urban Institute briefs on Federal Work Study, Parent PLUS loans, and college endowments. Baum has published numerous articles on higher education finance in professional journals, books, and the trade press. She is the author of Student Debt: Rhetoric and Realities of Higher Education Financing (2016) and co-author with Harry Holzer of Making College Work: Pathways to Success for Disadvantaged Students (2017). Baum also publishes frequent blog posts on the Urban Wire. She earned her BA in sociology at Bryn Mawr College, where she is currently a member of the board of trustees, and her PhD in economics at Columbia University.

In 2014, Baum was a co-recipient, with Michael S. McPherson, of the Allen P. Splete Award for Outstanding Service from CIC. The award honors significant contributions to higher education and recognizes national leadership through ideas and commitment on behalf of private colleges and universities. Baum earned a BA in sociology at Bryn Mawr College, where she is a member of the board of trustees, and a PhD in economics at Columbia University.

David A. Thomas is president of Morehouse College. He is an expert on workplace diversity and equity and is consulted widely for advice on organizational change. Previously, Thomas was dean of the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, where he diversified the faculty and staff of the McDonough School of Business, led major revisions of the curriculum, expanded the endowment, and increased research funding. Earlier, he was senior associate dean and H. Naylor Fitzhugh Professor at Harvard University. He began his academic career at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Thomas’s scholarly work has been published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Administrative Science Quarterly, Harvard Business Review, and Business Ethics Forum. He has coauthored two books related to his work on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Breaking Through: The Making of Minority Executives in Corporate America (1999) provides lessons for companies that wish to diversify their executive ranks. Leading for Equity: The Pursuit of Excellence in Montgomery County Public Schools (2009) outlines the way districts can transform schools to overcome achievement gaps for diverse groups of students. His most recent publication is a volume coedited with Laura Morgan Roberts and Anthony J. Mayo: Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience (2019).

Thomas serves on several boards, including the American Red Cross, Commonfund, and DTE Energy. Previously, he served on the boards of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Cambridge Trust Company, and the Posse Foundation. He has been a consultant on cultural diversity, mentorship, and organizational change for 100 of the Fortune 500 companies and has worked with nonprofit and government organizations. He received a bachelor’s degree in administrative sciences from Yale University, a master’s degree in organizational psychology from Columbia University, and master’s and doctoral degrees in organizational behavior also from Yale University.

Judith S. Eaton is president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), the largest institutional higher education membership organization in the United States. She has served as CHEA’s president since shortly after its founding in 1996.

A national advocate for academic quality through accreditation, CHEA is an association of degree-granting colleges and universities. It provides recognition to the other institutional and programmatic accrediting organizations, as well as a comprehensive source of information on accreditation and its value to society. The CHEA International Quality Group provides an international forum to address issues of quality assurance throughout the world.

Prior to her work at CHEA, Eaton served as chancellor of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, as president of the Council for Aid to Education, the Community College of Philadelphia, and the Community College of Southern Nevada, and as vice president of the American Council on Education. She has held teaching positions at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University. Eaton has written numerous books and articles on higher education and accreditation-related topics and addresses accreditation and quality assurance at conferences and meetings in the United States and internationally. Her recent publications include “Combatting Academic Corruption: Quality Assurance and Accreditation” in International Higher Education (2018) and “Quality, E-Learning and Alternative Providers of Higher Education” in Cross-Border Higher Education and Quality Assurance (2016).

Laura L. Behling is provost and professor of English at the University of Puget Sound. In addition to essays in Inside Higher Ed, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, and Pedagogy, Behling edited the Resource Handbook for Academic Deans (2014) and Reading, Writing, and Research: Undergraduate Students as Scholars in Literary Studies (2010). Other publications include Gross Anatomies: Fictions of the Physical in American Literature (2008) and The Masculine Woman in America, 1890–1935 (2001). She taught at Palacky University, Czech Republic, as a Fulbright scholar, served as a Fulbright specialist at the American University of Bulgaria, and was selected as a member of the inter-institutional peer mentoring network of administrators in the National Science Foundation ASCEND (Advancing STEM Careers by Empowering Network Development) Catalyst grant. She earned a BA in English from Kalamazoo College, an MS in journalism from Boston University, and an MA and PhD in English and American Literature from the Claremont Graduate School.

​Junius J. Gonzales joined the New York Institute of Technology as provost and vice president for academic affairs in 2018. He previously served in the University of North Carolina (UNC) system as senior vice president for academic affairs (the chief academic officer for 16 universities and one high school with total enrollment of nearly 240,000 students) beginning in 2015, as well as interim president from January to March 2016. While at UNC he was responsible for overseeing academic planning and budgeting, student affairs, sponsored programs and research, faculty development, licensure and institutional research, and data and analytics. Gonzales also served as provost and vice president for academic affairs of the University of Texas at El Paso and was the founding dean of the college of behavioral and community sciences and executive director of the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida. Gonzales earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Brown University, an MD with honors from the University of Pennsylvania, and an MBA with honors from the University of Maryland. A psychiatrist by training, he completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health.

​Titilayo Ufomata became provost of Saint Mary’s College (IN) in 2019. Previously, she served as provost and dean of faculty at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and more recently as special advisor to the president and board of trustees. Earlier, she was associate provost and distinguished professor at Kentucky State University, where she taught speech and communication. Prior to her appointment at Kentucky State, Ufomata was assistant dean of the faculty of arts at the University of Benin, Nigeria, where she taught English and phonetics. Her scholarship focuses on phonetics and the intersection of language with gender and identity; African diaspora populations; and higher education. Ufomata has received several international awards including the Fulbright International Education Administrators Seminar Award to France, an associateship of the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, and a British Academy visiting fellowship at University College London; she also is a laureate of the Council for Development of Social Science Research in Africa. She earned a PhD in phonetics from University College London and degrees in English from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.