Debra Humphreys, Lead Contributor
Debra’s posts
Debra Humphreys has been the vice president for communications and public affairs at the Association of American Colleges and Universities since January 2001. She  currently oversees public affairs programs and outreach, media relations, and the development of all of AAC&U’s publications, marketing efforts, and Web resources.  Prior to that, she served as director of programs in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives at AAC&U where she directed programs on women’s issues and diversity in higher education.  Humphreys received her BA as a first-generation college student from Williams College  and her PhD in English from Rutgers University.  She has  taught women’s studies, English composition and literature, and film studies at such institutions as University of Maryland, Baltimore  County, Towson  State University, and Rutgers University.  Her most recent  publication is “College Outcomes for Work, Life, and Citizenship: Can We Really  Do It All?” in Liberal Education (Winter 2009).

Helen L. Chen
Helen’s posts
Helen L. Chen is a research scientist at the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning (SCIL) within the Human-Sciences Technologies Advanced Research Institute at Stanford University. In her current position, Helen is leading the evaluation efforts to document and disseminate the innovations in teaching and learning occurring in the technology-augmented classrooms in Stanford’s Wallenberg Hall. Helen’s current research interests focus on the application of Folio Thinking pedagogy and practices in engineering education and the uses of e-portfolios and other social software tools (wikis, blogs, etc.) to facilitate teaching, learning, and assessment for students, faculty, and departments in various disciplines. Chen earned her undergraduate degree from UCLA and her PhD in communication with a minor in psychology from Stanford University in 1998. She corepresented Stanford’s involvement in the Inter/National Coalition on ePortfolio Research (2003-06) and is also a member of the national advisory board for AAC&U’s Valid Assessment of Learning in Undergraduate Education project.

Troy Duster
Troy’s posts
Troy Duster is Silver Professor of  Sociology and director of the Institute for the History of the Production of  Knowledge at New York University, and also holds an appointment as Chancellor’s  Professor at the University of California, Berkeley.  From 1996-98, he served as  member and then chair of the joint NIH/DOE advisory committee on Ethical, Legal  and Social Issues in the Human Genome  Project.  He is the past president of the  American Sociological Association (2004-05), and in 2003-04 served as chair  of the Board of Directors of the Association of American Colleges and  Universities.  He is a member of the  Research Advisory Committee of the Innocence Project.  Research interests include the social and  political implications of developments in human molecular genetics.

His relevant books and  monographs include Cultural Perspectives on  Biological Knowledge (coedited with Karen Garrett) and Backdoor to Eugenics, (second edition, 2003). Recent publications include “Comparative  Perspectives and Competing Explanations: Taking on the Newly Configured  Reductionist Challenge to Sociology,”  in American  Sociological Review 71 (February 2006 :1-15) and “Behavioral Genetics and  Explanations of the Link between Crime, Violence, and Race,” in E. Parens, A.R.  Chapman and N. Press, eds., Wrestling  with Behavioral Genetics: Science, Ethics, and Public Conversation, published in 2006 by Johns Hopkins  University Press.

Ashley Finley
Ashley’s posts
Ashley Finley is the director of assessment for learning at AAC&U. She is also the national evaluator for the Bringing Theory to Practice (BTtoP) Project, where she consults with campus teams on the implementation of initiatives that focus on the intersection and promotion of students’ engaged learning, civic development, and student mental health and well-being. She is currently working closely with six colleges and universities that serve as BTtoP demonstration and intensive sites, and an additional fifty-five institutions that compose BTtoP’s Leadership Coalition—a coalition specifically aimed at fostering sustainable institutional change and transformation around the goals of a liberal arts education. Finley’s work, at both the campus and national levels, has focused on developing best practices regarding program implementation, instrumentation, and mixed-methods assessment. Before joining AAC&U, she was an assistant professor of sociology at Dickinson College. Her teaching and research have focused broadly on issues of social inequality, specifically with regard to gender, in social institutions, and the use of quantitative methods. She has also taught courses that have incorporated high-impact learning practices, such as learning communities and service learning. Finley received a BA degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an MA and PhD, both in sociology, from the University of Iowa.

Kevin Hovland
Kevin’s posts
Kevin Hovland is director of global learning and curricular change at AAC&U, working in the office of Diversity, Equity, and Global Initiatives.  He is responsible for the Shared Futures initiative, with current projects funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Fund for the Improvement of Post-secondary Education. Current projects encourage colleges and universities to use global learning outcomes as an organizing principle for coherent and comprehensive general education curricular designs. He is also program director for AAC&U’s annual meeting, project director for The Educated Citizen and Public Health, and executive editor of the AAC&U periodical, Diversity & Democracy: Civic Learning for Shared Futures. Hovland earned a BA in Russian regional studies from Columbia University and is ABD in history at Georgetown University. Hovland is the author of the AAC&U monograph, Shared Futures: Global Learning and Liberal Education as well as several articles further articulating global learning as an essential outcome of liberal education.

George D. Kuh
George’s posts
George D. Kuh is Chancellor’s Professor of higher education at Indiana University-Bloomington, where he directs the Center for Post-secondary Research. The founding director of the widely used National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), Kuh received the BA from Luther College, MS from St. Cloud State University, and PhD from the University of Iowa. He has written extensively about student engagement, assessment, institutional improvement, and college and university cultures and consulted with about two hundred colleges and universities in the United States and abroad. His two most recent books are Student Success in College: Creating Conditions That Matter (2005) and Piecing Together the Student Success Puzzle: Research, Propositions, and Recommendations (2007). In 2001, he received Indiana University’s prestigious Tracy Sonneborn Award for a distinguished career of teaching and research. He has received honorary degrees from Luther College, Millikin University, Washington and Jefferson College, and Winthrop University.

Nancy O’Neill
Nancy’s posts
Nancy O’Neill is Director of Programs for the Office of Education and Institutional Renewal and Assistant Director for the Core Commitments initiative at AAC&U. In the latter role, she has helped to lead a national re-engagement with education for personal and social responsibility at the college level, consulting with campuses, evaluating programs, and organizing workshops and symposia. Prior to this, she served as the principal editor for a series of publications on diversity and institutional change developed through the Campus Diversity Initiative Evaluation Project and Making Excellence Inclusive initiative. She has also worked on the Association’s efforts directed at underserved student success and served as a faculty member at the Greater Expectations and Engaging Departments Institutes. O’Neill holds an M.A. in American Studies and an M.Ed. in Higher Education-Student Affairs from the University of Maryland and earned an individualized bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Social Criticism from the University at Buffalo. Her interests include academic affairs-student affairs partnerships, diversity and campus climate, student intellectual development, and institutional change centered on liberal education.

Carol Geary Schneider
Carol’s posts
Carol Geary Schneider has been president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities since 1998. With a membership of more than 1,200 institutions, including colleges and universities of all types and sizes, AAC&U is the leading national organization devoted to advancing and strengthening undergraduate liberal education. Under Schneider’s leadership, AAC&U has expanded its work on diversity, launched several new projects on civic engagement and the disciplines, and deepened its capacity to support campuses working on educational change.  Schneider developed and launched in 2005 AAC&U’s signature ten-year initiative, Liberal Education and America’s Promise. Schneider is a magna cum laude graduate and past member of the board of trustees of Mount Holyoke College, where she received the BA in history. She studied at the University of London’s Institute for Historical Research and earned the PhD in early modern history from Harvard University. She has received honorary degrees from Towson University, Wagner College, Westminster College (UT), Prince George’s Community College, the College of Wooster, and St. Lawrence University.

David Tritelli
David’s posts
David Tritelli is senior editor at the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the academic editor of Liberal Education, the association’s quarterly journal. Prior to that, he served as associate editor and as editor of the AAC&U quarterly Peer Review. Tritelli received his BA from the University of Delaware and his PhD in English from the George Washington University, where he has taught courses in English composition and literature.