Archives: Instructors

Dr. Arthur F. Kirk, Jr. served thirty-two years as a college and university president—effectively saving and transforming Keuka College and Saint Leo University. Prior to assuming Keuka College’s presidency in 1984, he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Misericordia University for five years where he also led a transformational turnaround, as chief operating officer, reversing years of decline and putting the institution on a path to sustainable prosperity. Dr. Kirk retired from the presidency of Saint Leo University in the summer of 2015. In his over eighteen years at the helm, Saint Leo University grew from a small campus of 730 students with a total student population of 7,100, most of them on 15 military bases, to a thriving campus of over 2,300 students and over 16,500 students total taking classes at over 40 locations in seven states and online. He built one of the largest and most respected online education programs among private, non-profit colleges in the nation. As part of that growth, Saint Leo University became the third largest catholic university with the largest catholic university school of business in the nation. Under Dr. Kirk’s leadership, Saint Leo’s annual revenues grew from $26 million […]

G.T. “Buck” Smith began his professional career at Cornell University in 1960, following graduate school there. He then returned to his undergraduate alma mater, The College of Wooster, in 1962 where he served as vice president for development. From 1977-88, he was president of Chapman University. In 2004 he was called out of retirement to serve as president of Bethany College (West Virginia) through December 2007. He then served as president of Davis & Elkins College from July 2008 through June 2013. He was recently reappointed as President of Davis & Elkins, effective summer 2015.

Anna L. Moro is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Languages/Cognitive Science of Language program, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, and Director of the McMaster English Language Development program (MELD), at McMaster University, in Hamilton, Canada. The MELD program, launched in 2014, is an intensive and comprehensive bridging/transitional program for international EAP students. The program’s strengths, and its core values, can be summarized as follows: academic literacies, acculturation and accountability. The program uses a structured, embedded mentorship model to pair senior undergraduate students with international EAP students in MELD. The model promotes meaningful engagement between mentors and mentees, which, in turn, mitigates the effects of acculturative stress on international students. Moro holds a PhD in linguistics, and her research interests include dialectology, contact linguistics, and applied linguistics. She has received recognition for her teaching, and is a past recipient of the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (McMaster University), and the OCUFA (Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations) Teaching Award.

Christopher Biehn has over twenty-five years of experience in philanthropy and engagement in both the education and other nonprofit sectors. In April 2012, he joined Ithaca College as the vice president for institutional advancement, which comprises the offices of development, alumni relations, and advancement services. In May 2015 Chris assumed additional responsibilities of marketing and communications for the college. At Ithaca Chris is focused on planning and executing a comprehensive campaign in support of IC 20/20, the college’s visionary plan that will offer a truly distinctive integrative learning experience—blending together a multi-disciplinary approach to its core curriculum and an extraordinary array of extra-curricular and off-campus opportunities. The campaign will mirror the plan, focusing on building engagement and philanthropy at all levels. Chris is also responsible for branding, marketing, communication, and crisis communication in support of enrollment and advancement priorities. Previously, Chris served as the vice president for university advancement at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. In that role he helped reinvigorate a comprehensive fundraising campaign while overseeing the departments of annual giving, major and planned gifts, leadership gifts, alumni relations, and corporate and foundation relations. Prior to joining Drew, Biehn served for eight years as the chief advancement officer […]

A member of the Nazareth team for fifteen years, Kelly Gagan has been vice president since 2006, and her areas of oversight include marketing and communications, fundraising, government relations, and alumni relations. In close collaboration with the president and the Nazareth board, Kelly is responsible for the fundraising activities of the college; maintaining relations with alumni, parents and friends; and communications to internal and external audiences through publications, advertising, and media relations. Her marketing team collaborates closely with the enrollment division of the college, and collectively they celebrated a record number of students enrolled this fall. Kelly is the administrative adviser for both the advancement and the trusteeship committee responsible for nominating college trustees. She previously worked as senior associate director of major gifts at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. While at the center, Kelly was responsible for the major gifts program of the $150 million campaign to endow the Carter Center and traveled with President and Mrs. Carter for cultivation and solicitation calls. Prior to that, Kelly worked in health care fundraising in both Worcester, Massachusetts and Syracuse, New York. Kelly serves as a board member of the Bivona Child Advocacy Center as well as CASE District II. […]

Dino M. Hernandez is a 20+ year veteran in the higher education advancement profession and in his career has successfully managed all aspects of university advancement: transformational and major gift fundraising, annual giving, alumni and parent relations, corporate and foundation development, grants and sponsored programs, and advancement communications and media relations. Within his first months in his current position, Mr. Hernandez secured a transformational gift for Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU) of $6,000,000 and grew the major gifts pipeline from zero to $25,000,000.00 within his first eleven months. He and his team met and exceeded a daunting $6M Taube Challenge on December 31, 2015 by raising over $6.4M in less than twelve months. The average gift size grew 881% and as of June 30, 2016, NDNU will celebrate two consecutive years of the highest amount of private philanthropic support ever raised than in any previous years in its entire 165-year history. Prior to Notre Dame de Namur University, Mr. Hernandez has held leadership roles at Sierra Nevada College, Lawrence Technological University, The University of Michigan-Flint, and Oakland University. At Lawrence Tech, where he served more than thirteen years, he led two successful comprehensive capital campaigns of $46.6 million and […]

Since 1998, Amy has worked at the University of Iowa Main Library and currently oversees access services, which consists of the circulation/reserve, interlibrary loan, and bookstacks departments as well as the media collection, off-site storage facility and most recently, the Google Books project. Along with other librarians and IT services professionals, Amy serves on the learning commons (LC) operations team, which provides oversight of the LC in the Main Library. Amy was involved in the planning of the LC, working closely with the architects, facilities personnel, designers, librarians, and IT staff. She was also fortunate to help create and hire a new professional to oversee the LC, a position shared by IT services and the libraries. Amy has published and presented on access services related topics. She is also active in the American Library Association, the Iowa Library Association, and the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), leading and serving on committees within these organizations. She also leads several teams at the University of Iowa, including the presidential charter committee on safety and security, the UI Libraries user access team, and the Google Books project team.