As Vice President, Robert Knight’s portfolio includes finance, human resources, facilities, information technology, procurement, and security and safety for all students, faculty and staff of the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, British Columbia. Robert has extensive experience in senior administration and finance roles at academic institutions. Before coming to UNBC in April 2016, Robert served as the principal administrative and financial officer for the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University, managing the central administrative operations of the school, including human resources, budget and finance, information technology, and space allocation and facilities. Prior to going to NYU in 2010, he served as Associate Dean for Finance and Administration at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Engineering and at its Weatherhead School of Management. He has also served as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Financial Planning and Budget Director at Oberlin College. Robert holds a BA in Social Sciences from The Ohio State University and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University. He also earned a Certificate of Advanced Studies from the American Graduate School of International Management.
Dr. Lisa Severy serves as a national leader in the fields of career development and counseling, the new collegiate job market, experiential education, international student employment, student affairs, and the intersection of education and employment. Dr. Severy is immediate past president of the National Career Development Association (NCDA) and has been a board member since 2011. Before joining the team in Colorado, Dr. Severy worked at the University of Florida’s Career Resource Center for seven years. Dr. Severy earned her bachelor’s degree from Indiana University and three graduate degrees, including a PhD in counselor education, from the University of Florida. She is a licensed professional counselor in Colorado. Dr. Severy has co-authored two books, Making Career Decisions that Count and Turning Points and has made contributions to the Encyclopedia of Counseling, the Counselor’s Guide to Career Assessment Instruments, Rentz’s Student Affairs Practice in Higher Education, the Career Development Quarterly, the Journal of College Student Development and the Journal of College Counseling.
Laura combines a passion for creative problem solving with years of experience in the digital realm. Her work primarily focuses on content marketing and user experience, including interactive concepting, site designs and redesigns, competitive analysis, and cross-platform tactics. She is a master at listening to the needs of clients and their audiences, with a strong commitment to user-centric design processes like personas, scenarios, user testing, and heuristic analysis. Her current clients include University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, the University of Miami, Juilliard, New Jersey Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas at Arlington. Prior to joining Lipman Hearne, Laura managed interactive initiatives for Cricket Moon Media and Manning Digital. In addition to websites and microsites, she also has a strong game design background, with experience on a variety of platforms including HTML5, iOS, Facebook, and Flash. Her versatile portfolio covers topics from Dora the Explorer to defense contracts, including work for Disney Online, Random House, Viacom, Navistar, and Discovery Networks.
Deb previously served as the chief academic officer and vice president of academic innovation at Capella University. She has long been interested in innovations in higher education designed to improve student success. Most recently, she pioneered the development and implementation of Capella’s new competency-based, direct assessment program, FlexPath. This delivery model strives to improve transparency of learning outcomes while reducing costs and improving completion rates for adults working to earn postsecondary degrees. Deb has more than twenty years of experience in higher education, including seventeen years with Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she held a variety of faculty and leadership roles. She has authored numerous articles, book chapters and conference presentations throughout her career. In addition to ongoing professional interests regarding adult learners in higher education, Deb is currently focused on methods of innovation in established institutions, the application of action analytics to higher education, and the power of competency-based education to support our nation’s educational goals.
Branden joined Loyola Marymount University as associate provost in June 2015, where he leads the University’s Career and Professional Development initiative. In this role, he oversees the office responsible for successfully launching 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students into their professional careers; 99% of LMU graduates are employed, enrolled in graduate school, or pursuing post-graduate service within six months of graduation. A frequent conference presenter and speaker, Branden specializes in student return on investment, the rebranding of career services and measuring and reporting post-graduate outcomes. His work in the field of career services has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, American Public Media’s Marketplace, EAB, The Lawlor Review, The Hechinger Report, the Career Leadership Collective and the book Will College Pay Off? by Peter Cappelli of the Wharton School of Business. Before joining LMU, Branden served as the founding director of the Piper Center for Vocation and Career at St. Olaf College, charged by the president to transform the center into an innovative, results-oriented career center. Prior to St. Olaf, Branden served as associate director of career services at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Branden has also held positions […]
Kate Vitasek is an international authority for her award-winning research and Vested® business model for highly collaborative relationships. Vitasek, a faculty member at the University of Tennessee, has been lauded by World Trade magazine as one of the “Fabulous 50+1” most influential people impacting global commerce. Her work has led to five books, including: Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules That Will Transform Outsourcing, Vested: How P&G, McDonald’s and Microsoft Are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships, and Getting to We: Negotiating Agreements for Highly Collaborative Relationships. Vitasek is known for her practical and research-based advice for driving transformation and innovation through highly collaborative and strategic partnerships. She has appeared on CNN International, Bloomberg, NPR, and Fox Business News. Her work has been featured in over 300 articles in publications like Forbes, Chief Executive Magazine, CIO magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Journal of Commerce, World Trade magazine, and Outsource magazine.
In her current role at the University of South Florida (USF), Katie advises both geographic alumni chapters and interest-based alumni societies. Having been with the USF Alumni Association for ten years, Katie has worked with multiple diverse alumni groups. In the spring and summer of 2014 she spearheaded the association’s efforts to refresh the alumni groups program and was integral to the development of a new operating plan, Project Group Evolution. The new model established a tier system, created new categories of alumni groups and set clear expectations for both staff and volunteers. In addition to her primary work with alumni groups she also executes the association’s annual business recognition awards.
With over 15 years of career services and student engagement experience in diverse institutional settings, Joe has been recognized for his leadership and strategic planning on the departmental, institutional, and professional association level. He has served as a leader in developing and establishing the standards of the career services profession and assessing the work the profession. Joe was recently named the Assistant Dean and Executive Director of the Gwen M. Greene Career & Internship Center at the University of Rochester and will begin this new appointment in June 2015. He spent the last three years at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as Director of VCU Career Services. As the director of the central career center at VCU – a public, urban, research university of 32,000 students in the capital city of Richmond – Joe was responsible for leading a team of 15 full-time professional staff and was tasked with re-imagining the role of career services at VCU and within the Richmond community. In 2012 he was tapped by the Provost to coordinate all career services efforts throughout the institution in the 13 schools and colleges, including a premier medical school campus and the #1 public arts school in the United States. […]
Holly Norton is a communications professional specializing in digital strategy and social media production, analysis, and marketing. She is currently the Digital Content Manager for the University of Delaware, as well as a co-instructor in the top-ranked non-credit Social Media Marketing Strategy Certificate Program through the Department of Professional and Continuing Studies. She works with her colleagues to develop the curriculum and methodology for the course and guides students on best social media practices, digital storytelling, brand and crisis management, content optimization and more. The University of Delaware also serves as the higher education representative on The Conference Board’s elite Social Media Council, which includes brands such as Johnson & Johnson, The Mayo Clinic, Procter & Gamble FedEx and more. Before taking on her latest role at the University of Delaware, Holly was the Digital Editor for Main Line Today magazine, part of the Today Media Company, which owns Delaware Today magazine. She handled all digital content optimization, social media strategy and wrote features and profiles.
As Provost of Somerset Community College, Tony L. Honeycutt served as the Chief Academic Officer for the college and was responsible for oversight of the daily operations of the college and for leadership of the college in the absence of the College President. Dr. Honeycutt was primarily responsible for providing leadership to Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, and other units that support instructional activities. His educational career began as an instructor at Mississippi Delta Community College in Moorhead, Mississippi. During his time at Somerset, Dr. Honeycutt oversaw a 48 percent increase in in credit hours per student. Somerset managed to accomplish this while also serving an increasing number of students and saving $3.4 million in expenses. With nearly 10,000 students, SCC is part of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System, Kentucky’s largest provider of postsecondary education and workforce training. Honeycutt served in education for more than 43 years, and at SCC for 11 years.
