Parks has spent over 10 years working in higher education including experience with strategic enrollment management, alumni relations, development, and career services. His driving passion in his current work is building relationships and finding opportunities to get alumni involved with their alma mater in the most meaningful way possible. He currently serves as the Director of Strategic Operations in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Office of Alumni Relations. He is primarily charged with serving as the primary conduit between alumni relations and VCU programs, schools, and units that intersects with alumni in order to increase effectiveness and economies of scale. This includes work in developing volunteer strategies and infrastructure for VCU’s 200,000 alumni, creating and maintaining the University’s alumni engagement metrics system, and developing systems to support alumni recruitment, training, development, and stewardship across the university. Parks attended Longwood University where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in organizational and strategic communication in 2008. He served as Director of Alumni Relations for alma mater prior to joining the team at VCU. Before returning to his alma mater, he spent five years at Royall & Company, now EAB, helping colleges and universities across the country achieve their strategic enrollment goals.
Clarybel has over 20 years in higher education administration. She is an expert in setting strategy, leadership development, and implementation and administration of diversity and inclusion initiatives. She has designed and delivered trainings related to inclusion, unconscious bias, cultural competence, and microaggressions and has extensive experience in organizational culture and change management. In her current position at Duke University, Clarybel is responsible for volunteer engagement of over 16,000 alumni which includes creating and developing processes and procedures with the goal of improving efficiency and the overall experience. She focuses on recruitment and retention efforts that include coordinating strategy, identifying trends, and data analytics. She is responsible for curriculum development and integrating leadership development by facilitating onboarding initiatives, trainings, and opportunities for understanding organizational culture and history. She serves as the primary staff contact for our Board of Directors and is responsible for the development of the onboarding/offboarding experience. She also serves on the Awards and Recognition Committee and the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion and coordinates all high-level logistics for the three board meetings annually. Clarybel earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the Maxwell School of Citizenship at Syracuse University and also holds a Masters in Higher Education […]
Tyrell Warren-Burnett has served as the Senior Director of Annual Giving at the Oregon State University Foundation since August 2017. At the OSU Foundation, he provides strategic execution and management of a comprehensive annual giving program focused on acquisition and pipeline development. Prior to this, Tyrell worked at the Washington State University Foundation where he led Annual Giving for three years. He also served as Strategic Marketing and Direct Mail Coordinator for annual giving at WSU, after working for several years in sales and marketing. His marketing experience has allowed him to take a unique approach to annual giving that helps to create innovative and forward-thinking strategies. Tyrell is a current member of the Case VIII District Cabinet serving in the role of the Chair-elect. One of his passions within the fundraising industry has been helping increase diversity within the profession as well as building community amongst its diverse fundraising professionals. Tyrell holds a BS from Michigan State University and an MBA from Ashford University.
I help my clients improve their personal effectiveness so that they can achieve the success they want in their career and leadership journeys. Jennifer Askey is an individual and group academic coach with over 25 years of experience in higher education in the U.S. and Canada. Her career has included work experience all over the academic map as support staff, sessional/adjunct lecturer, tenure-track faculty, tenured faculty, and professional administrative staff. As a coach, she helps her clients achieve clarity around the impact they want to have as an academic and the habits they need to develop to reach their goals. As a PCC certified coach through ICF, Jennifer enjoys leveraging assessments (e.g., DISC, Emotional Intelligence, Belbin Team Roles, etc.) for faculty clients to boost their self-awareness around key workplace behaviors and motivators. In her service of helping faculty members create their dream careers and jobs, she focuses on celebrating self-awareness and using that awareness as a jumping off point for exploration, innovation, and decisive action. A core of her coaching philosophy is to help clients establish patterns of noticing and recognition around self-sabotaging behaviors and to choose more resonant and empowering options. Writing productivity can be a key stressor for faculty […]
Dr. Smita Ruzicka serves as Dean of Student Life at Johns Hopkins University, where she provides leadership for a wide portfolio of services and programs aimed to enhance the overall student experience. Her portfolio includes student leadership and involvement, diversity and inclusion, health and wellness, residential life, crisis management and support services. She has over 15 years of experience in higher education, having served in leadership roles at Tulane University and The University of Texas at Austin prior to arriving to JHU in 2018. Dean Ruzicka earned her BA in psychology and English from Trinity University (TX), an MA in counseling psychology from Texas State University, and a PhD in Higher Education Administration from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Ruzicka has also had experience in the classroom and has taught courses in the areas of diversity and inclusion as well as course focused on leadership theories and practice. Her research interests include South Asian American students as well as issues impacting the experiences of Asian Americans. She has also served on a number of professional and community organization boards including the YWCA of Greater Austin and the Indian American Coalition of Central Texas. Outside of her work, Dean […]
Romando brings a strong portfolio of experience that helps him succeed in leading division and institutional initiatives around student success for an increasingly diverse student body. He was previously the Associate Vice President for Student Affairs at San Jose State University and has held associate dean and director positions in student affairs at the University of Southern California, Loyola University, Seattle University and Santa Clara University.
Rita Kumar is a Professor of English and the Director of Honors at the University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash College and teaches courses in English Composition and Literature. She served as the inaugural executive director of the Faculty Enrichment Center from 2019-2023 where she provided the conceptual and organizational leadership for the center. She developed and oversaw the center’s core programming. As an interdisciplinary collaborator, trained in mentoring at the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER) and with 27 years of teaching experience she created opportunities for programming that are based on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is the 2013-14 recipient of the UCBA Innovative Teaching Award for her inventive use of Problem-based learning (PBL) in the classroom. She is the co-editor of the 2021 book, Equity and Inclusion in Higher Education: Strategies for Teaching. Rita is a member of the UC Academy of Fellows for Teaching and Learning. Her research focuses on Problem-based learning (PBL), Lesson Study, inclusive classroom practices, improving students’ information literacy skills and faculty development. She has shared her research globally in over one hundred professional presentations. Her work has been published in journals such as Teaching English in […]
Diane Zosky has been the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Illinois State University since 2018. She has a Ph.D. in clinical social work from Loyola University Chicago. Zosky is a Professor of Social Work and previously was the Director of the School of Social Work at Illinois State University for 8 years. Her research and teaching areas include intimate partner violence and culturally responsive practice.
Heather R. Taft, Ph.D. has been creating and teaching entirely online biology courses since 2015. As Lead Faculty she oversaw the creation, revision, and maintenance of biology, geology, physics, and chemistry courses, many of which incorporate laboratory components. She also helped oversee the design of courses in CSU Global’s new pre-nursing program. Dr. Taft holds a Master’s degree in Education focused on online science education, and a Graduate Certificate in E-learning and Online Teaching.
China is the founding Executive Director of the TEAM (Teaching, Enrichment, Advising, Mentoring) Center in the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Texas Southern University (TSU). During her 16-year career in higher education, China taught at the university and community colleges level, directed faculty development centers, and developed programming for faculty, administrators and students. Her scholarly work, teaching, research, and service focus on adult learning, educational and faculty development, equity pedagogy, and culturally responsive approaches to teaching within higher education learning environments. She is widely known for the pedagogical transformation of higher education educators through critical self-reflection.
