Office Hours with John Gardner

Vicki is an Associate Vice President at the Gardner Institute, where she has served as an Advisor and Fellow since her retirement as Provost and Professor of Psychology at Otterbein University. She is the Process Coordinator for the Retention Performance Management process. She serves as an institutional Advisor and Fellow in both of these processes. She also serves as a Senior Advisor on the Gateways to Completion process. Prior to her retirement, Vicki led curricular, programmatic and business collaboration initiatives for the 52 member institutions of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio, where she helped found the Ohio Project Kaleidoscope (AAC&U) Regional organization, and the Ohio/Western Pennsylvania/West Virginia Higher Education Recruiting Consortium (HERC) as well as state-wide planning groups focusing on collaborative professional development and course sharing. Prior to her leadership role at Otterbein, Dr. McGillin served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Linfield College (OR) and Associate Provost at Texas Woman’s University.

Vicki began her academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut before moving to Clark University (MA) where she subsequently served as Associate Dean of the College. Stimulated by her first, First Year Experience Conference, she initiated a First Year Seminar program at Clark organized around student engagement with primary research. Subsequently, at Wheaton College (MA), Vicki served as Dean and Assistant Provost. The First Year Advising Teams she created received national recognition, both from NACADA and in the DEEP study of unusually strong student engagement completed by George Kuh and associates. She has consulted with over thirty colleges and universities on advising, resilience, curriculum and faculty development and has served on over a half-dozen higher education boards or executive committees, including multiple positions on the NACADA Board of Directors.

As an academic leader, Vicki focused on the career-span professional development of academics, student academic resilience, strategic planning and budgeting, authentic learning outcomes assessment, the redesign of teaching/learning spaces and on evidence-based curricular reform. She has published or presented over 100 papers on these topics. She has consulted/advised national and regional organizations on leadership development and the development of academic and business collaborations/consortia including the Project Kaleidoscope (AAC&U) STEM Senior Leadership Institute, the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, the NACADA Summer Institute and Assessment Institute, and the Council of Independent Colleges Chairs Institute. Vicki earned her B.S. and M.S. in Psychology from Pennsylvania State University and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Michigan State University.

To contact Vicki, please email her at [email protected]

Jamie Merisotis is a globally recognized leader in philanthropy, education, human work and talent development, and public policy. He has been Lumina’s president and CEO since 2008.

He previously was co-founder and president of the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy and also served as executive director of a bipartisan national commission on college affordability appointed by the U.S. president and congressional leaders. Merisotis is the author of the acclaimed book America Needs Talent, named a Top 10 Business book of 2016 by Booklist, as well as Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines, released to wide praise in October 2020.

He is often requested as a media commentator and contributor. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Journal, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Washington Monthly, Politico, The Hill, Roll Call, and other publications.

Merisotis has extensive global experience as an advisor and consultant in southern Africa, the former Soviet Union, Europe, and other parts of the world. A respected analyst and innovator, Merisotis is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

He has received numerous awards and holds honorary degrees from several universities and colleges. Merisotis also is a trustee and advisor for a diverse array of organizations around the world. He serves as a Governor of The Ditchley Foundation, based in the United Kingdom, and is past chairman and continuing trustee of the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C. as well as The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, the world’s largest museum for children. He also is a board member of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, and several other entities.

Leo M. Lambert is President Emeritus and Professor at Elon University. Lambert served as president from 1999-2018, leading Elon’s rise to national prominence by promoting a student-centered culture that values strong relationships between students and their faculty and staff mentors. Focused on developing students as global citizens, ethical leaders and creative problem-solvers, Lambert led two strategic plans, creating a model for the modern liberal arts university.

Led by President Lambert, Elon built a national reputation for academic excellence across the curriculum, including the sheltering of a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, and for its innovative programs in study abroad, undergraduate research, leadership, interfaith dialogue, civic engagement and community service, and preparing students for meaningful careers and advanced study.

Elon’s campus grew tremendously during Lambert’s presidency. More than 100 new buildings were added, including major investments in the residential campus, building four major neighborhoods, integrating academic and residence life programs and nurturing a flourishing intellectual climate.

Lambert was a strong advocate for increasing access to higher education for students with high financial need and created the Odyssey Scholars program (for undergraduates attending Elon) and the Elon Academy (to support local high school students in gaining access to higher education).

Division 1 athletics advanced during Lambert’s tenure, including membership in the Colonial Athletics Association, the addition of important facilities such as Rhodes Stadium and the Schar Center, and the adoption of a new athletics identity, the Phoenix.

Lambert has written extensively about post-secondary education and is co-author of The Undergraduate Experience: Focusing Institutions on What Matters Most, published by Jossey-Bass in 2016. He was also co-editor of a book about university teaching that was published by the Syracuse University Press in 2005. His alma mater, the State University of New York at Geneseo, awarded him an honorary doctorate of humane letters in 2002. In 2009, he received the inaugural William M. Burke Presidential Award for Excellence in Experiential Education from the National Society for Experiential Education. His forthcoming book (with Peter Felten) will be published by The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Farrah Jackson Ward, Ph.D. is the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Professor of Mathematics at Elizabeth City State University (ECSU). She received her B.S. in mathematics education from North Carolina A&T State University and MS and PhD degrees in mathematics from North Carolina State University. Dr. Ward holds a post graduate Certificate in Academic Leadership from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and is a graduate of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ Millennium Leadership Initiative. She taught at the University of North Carolina Wilmington before joining the faculty at ECSU in 2007. Dr. Ward was appointed Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and served in that role for 6 years before being named Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs in 2016. She served as interim Provost from 2018 – 2019 and was appointed Provost in 2019.

Under the leadership of Dr. Ward, ECSU ranked in the top ten nationally for graduating the largest number of African Americans with undergraduate degrees in mathematics. ECSU was also ranked under her leadership as the #1 institution in the nation for graduating the largest number of African Americans with master’s degrees in mathematics. Her expertise in addressing educational barriers for STEM undergraduate and graduate students led to the successful acquisition of more than $5 million in external funding from the National Science Foundation and Department of Education. She has created several initiatives aimed at improving student success including the implementation of EAB’s Navigate, a restructuring of ECSU’s academic advising services, and a campus-wide reduction in the number of credits required for graduation from an average of 128 credits to 120 credits. In partnership with the John Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Studies, Dr. Ward led the Foundations of Excellence (FoE) project which created a comprehensive plan targeting improvements to the first-year experience. She is strategic in developing programs to enhance student success and because of her leadership as Provost, ECSU has experienced a 5.6% increase in freshman retention and a 21% increase in enrollment.

Dr. Ward is widely recognized for her work in student success and higher education administration and has been invited as a featured speaker by a variety of organizations such as the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE), AASCU, Interfolio, and EAB.

Brent Drake, has worked in higher education since 2001 with positions focused on institutional research, educational assessment, business intelligence, and institutional effectiveness. He has published and presented refereed conference sessions on research on student success initiatives, gateway course redesign, predictors of individual student success, enrollment management, business intelligence and data analytics, enrollment and student completion predictive modeling, recruitment, and enrollment trends. This includes co-authoring chapters on gateway courses in Talking About Learning Revisited: Persistence, Relocation, and Loss in Undergraduate STEM Education, and The Transfer Experience: A Handbook for Creating a More Equitable and Successful Postsecondary System, on data visualization in Building Capacity in Institutional Research and Decision Support in Higher Education, and on business intelligence and data analytics in New Directions for Institutional Research. He also was honored, along with his co-authors, with the Charles F. Elton Best Paper in Institutional Research in 2019 for their journal article on the signally effects of first-year seminar grades in The Journal of the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition.

Dr. Drake holds a baccalaureate degree in athletic training, a master's degree in sports Psychology, and a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a joint focus on psychometrics and motivation theory all from Purdue University. He also taught for several years at Purdue, providing instruction in statistics, measurement theory, research methods, and motivational theory. He presently also serves as a Senior Research Fellow for the College of Education at Claremont Graduate University in California.

Prior to joining the full-time staff of the Gardner Institute, Dr. Drake served as a Research Fellow for the Gardner Institute conducting research on the relationship between the Institute’s institutional transformation efforts and student outcomes such as course grades, retention, persistence, and graduation. His most recent position prior to the Gardner Institute was as the Vice Provost for Decision Support at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he served for five years, and prior to that he worked at Purdue University for nearly 17 years ultimately serving as the Chief Data Officer for the final five years of his tenure.

He has served on serval relevant boards and committees including on the Executive Board of the Indiana Association of Institutional Research, a member of the inaugural University Innovation Alliance, the Indiana Postsecondary Data Access Group, and the Minority Serving Institutions Task Force at UNLV. Drake also served for seven years as a reviewer for The Journal of the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition.

Dr. Drake resides in Lafayette, IN with his wife Maria Drake and near his son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters. He enjoys reading, playing guitar, and intends to play pickleball until his knees cease to function.

To contact Brent, please email him at [email protected]