Staff & Associates
Carrie Allen, Research Analyst, University of Illinois
T. Jameson Brewer, Research Analyst, University of Illinois
Timothy Reese Cain, Senior Scholar, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois
Robert Dumas, Research Analyst, University of Illinois
Peter Ewell, Senior Scholar, Vice President of the NCHEMS
Pat Hutchings, Senior Scholar, Consulting Scholar for The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Stan Ikenberry, Co-Principal Investigator, University of Illinois
Natasha Jankowski, Assistant Director, University of Illinois
Jillian Kinzie, Associate Research Scientist, Indiana University
George Kuh, NILOA Director and Co-Principal Investigator, Indiana University
Paul Myers, Research Analyst, University of Illinois
Katie
Schultz, Research Analyst, University of Illinois
Carrie Allen is an EdM student in the Education Policy, Organization and Leadership program at the University of Illinois. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa. She is an intern in the University of Illinois' College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and serves on the Provost and Graduate College Student Advisory Board. Her interests include student development, first-year programs, and student affairs assessment.
T. Jameson Brewer is a PhD student in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois. He earned a master's degree in Social Foundations of Education from Georgia State University and a bachelor's degree in Secondary Education of History from Valdosta State University. He previously worked as a high school history teacher in Atlanta Public Schools through Teach For America and was a Fellow at the Edward E. Ford Foundation. His main research interests include Teach For America, education politics and policy, and neoliberalism.
Timothy Reese Cain is an assistant professor and the coordinator of the Higher Education Division in the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also co-directs the Ethnography of the University Initiative, a cross-campus and inter-institutional project that fosters course-based student research on higher education and digitally archives the processes and products of that work. His own historical research examines academic freedom, faculty unionization, campus speech, and related issues. He is an associate editor of the History of Education Quarterly and his first book, Establishing Academic Freedom: Politics, Principles, and the Development of Core Values, was released by Palgrave Macmillan in September 2012.
Robert Dumas is an EdD student in the Education Policy, Organization & Leadership program at the University of Illinois. Robert received his Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education at Northeastern State University and worked as a middle school teacher for Tulsa Public Schools. He earned a master’s degree in Educational Administration, Curriculum, and Supervision from the University of Oklahoma and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Illinois. His interests include policy and legal issues as it relates to higher education.
Peter Ewell, Senior Scholar of the project, is also Vice President of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS). Ewell’s work focuses on assessing institutional and higher education system effectiveness and the outcomes of college, and involves both research and direct consulting with institutions and state systems on collecting and using assessment information in planning, evaluation, and budgeting. He has direct initiatives funded by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the National Institute for Education, the Consortium for the Advancement of Private Higher Education, the Pew Charitable Trusts. In addition, he has consulted with over 375 colleges and universities and twenty-four state systems of higher education on topics related to performance indicators and the assessment of student learning. Dr. Ewell has authored seven books and numerous articles on the topic of improving undergraduate instruction through the assessment of student outcomes. In addition, he has prepared commissioned papers for many agencies including the Education Commission of the States, the National Governors’ Association, the National Conference of State Legislators, and the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. A graduate of Haverford College, he received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University in 1976 and was on the faculty of the University of Chicago.
Pat Hutchings, Senior Scholar of the project, joined the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 1998, serving as a senior scholar and then as vice president, working closely with a wide range of programs and research initiatives, including the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. She has written widely on the investigation and documentation of teaching and learning, the peer collaboration and review of teaching, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Recent publications, drawing from Carnegie's work, include Ethics of Inquiry: Issues in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2002), Opening Lines: Approaches to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2000) and, co-authored with Mary Taylor Huber, The Advancement of Learning: Building the Teaching Commons (2005). She left her full-time position in December 2009 but continues to work part-time with the Foundation on a broad range of higher education issues. She was chair of the English department at Alverno College from 1978 to 1987 and a senior staff member at the American Association for Higher Education from 1987-1997. Her doctorate in English is from the University of Iowa.
Stan Ikenberry, co-principal investigator, has had a long and visible career in American higher education as an academic leader and student of higher education policy. He held major academic and administrative posts at West Virginia University and Penn State University prior to serving as president of the University of Illinois from 1979-1995 and 2010. Ikenberry worked closely with and led the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, AAU, and NASULGC. From 1996 through 2001 he served as president and chief executive officer of the American Council on Education, where he served as the national spokesperson on public policy issues related to higher education on the national level. Relevant to the particular focus of this proposal, Ikenberry is experienced in the workings of accreditation and served as co-chair of the “President’s Work Group on Accreditation” that recommended to the national higher education community the founding of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. CHEA and other accreditation groups and higher education associations have become increasingly engaged with the challenge of assessment of learning outcomes at the collegiate level.
Natasha Jankowski, Assistant Director and Research Analyst, has presented at numerous national conferences and written various reports for NILOA. Her main research interests include assessment and evaluation, organizational evidence use, and evidence-based storytelling. She holds a PhD in Higher Education from the University of Illinois, an M.A. in Higher Education Administration from Kent State University, and a B.A. in philosophy from Illinois State University. She previously worked for GEAR UP Learning Centers at Western Michigan University, taught Orientation 101 at Kent State University, and worked with the Office of Community College Research and Leadership studying community colleges and public policy.
Jillian Kinzie, IUCPR associate research scientist, is responsible for organizing the day-to-day activities related to the case study portion of this project. She played a similar role in managing the field research reported in Student Success in College, for which she was a senior co-author. In her role as associate director of the NSSE Institute for Effective Education Practice, she has worked with dozens of campuses to develop assessment strategies and advise on using the data to improve student learning. She was the co-principal investigator on a Teagle-funded project to evaluate the efficacy of its investment in supporting the development and use of assessment instruments in liberal arts college settings.
George Kuh, co-principal investigator and project director, has published more than 300 items (23 books and monographs, 75 chapters, 220 articles), and is an internationally recognized authority on assessment and improving the quality of the undergraduate experience. He has received numerous awards for his research and academic leadership from both scholarly and practitioner-based organizations. Chancellor’s Professor Emeritus of Higher Education at Indiana University, Kuh directed the IU Center for Postsecondary Research between 1999 and 2010, which attracted more than $11 million in grants and contracts during this period. He was principal or co-principal investigator for projects that accounted for $9.5 million of that work, including $3.9 million from the Pew Charitable Trusts to develop and implement the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which has been used by about 1,400 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada. Kuh also has provided leadership for the development and use of other large-scale institutional improvement tools including the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement, the Law Student Survey of Student Engagement, the College Student Experiences Questionnaire Assessment Program, and the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project. In addition, Kuh has directed several multi-institutional studies using qualitative case study methods (such as those to be used in this proposed project), two of which resulted in major books (Involving Colleges, 1991; Student Success in College, 2005/2010).
Paul Myers is a PhD student in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University. After earning his MEd in Elementary Education from DePaul University, he taught 7 years in Chicago Southland schools. His research interests include education policy, the state and national politics of education reform, and democratic education.
Katie Schultz is an EdM student in the Education Policy, Organization and Leadership program at the University of Illinois. She received a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, IN, and worked for several years in accounting and finance. Her interests include finance-related topics such as higher education financing, student financial aid issues, and campus budgeting.
National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment |