Lea is an electronics and computer engineer and former Australian Navy Officer. While in the Australian Navy, Lea was engaged in his first Activity-Based Cost model as part of a project to build a large enterprise-wide model covering the entire Australian Navy. After leaving the navy, Lea was a foundation employee of what would become Pilbara Group, with clients primarily in the Australian defence force. The U.S. Navy saw the model completed for the Australian Navy and requested the same. This took Lea and the team to Pearl Harbor, HI and eventually Norfolk, VA. About 10 years ago, during this time in the U.S., the company began receiving requests from Australian universities to build ABC models, which kick started the higher education practice. Now, higher education is a primary focus for Pilbara Group in Australia and the U.S. and Lea is currently heading up both companies servicing clients in Australia, the U.S., Mexico, and the United Kingdom. His recent initiatives include working closely with public, private, and community colleges in the United States on designing and implementing activity-based costing.
Bill leads off with a pragmatic approach to shrink academic costs–without cutting academic programs. He will summarize ideas from his new book, Resource Management for Colleges and Universities, and lessons learned during 40 years of wrestling with academic budgets as a Professor, Dean, and Vice President of Finance at Stanford University. Bill, an emeritus professor and former officer of Stanford University, has been active as a teacher/researcher, consultant, and university administrator for more than forty years. After gaining tenure in Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, he served the central administration as Vice Provost for Research, Acting Provost, and Vice President for Business and Finance—during which time he developed and pioneered financial planning and management tools that have become standard in the field—and then as Professor of Higher Education working on resource allocation, cost containment, and academic quality assurance and improvement. He co-directed the Department of Education’s National Center for Postsecondary Improvement from 1996 to 2002, served on Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee from 1991 to 2003, and has been an Honorary Faculty Fellow at the University of Melbourne (AU) since 2010. His most recent book is Reengineering the University: How to Be Mission Centered, Market Smart, and Margin Conscious (Johns […]
Leslie has nearly 30 years of budget development experience across government, non-profit and higher-education. After 18 years with NYU as a school finance officer she is now responsible for the oversight of the development, implementation and administration of VCU’s $1.1B operating budget. This not only includes administration of the university annual revenue and expense budgets but also work as a partner in the multi-year planning process. Over the past three years, Leslie and her team have also successfully developed, tested, communicated and implemented a new decentralized budget model which will go live the summer of 2018.
David currently works in the Office of Budget and Resource Analysis at Virginia Commonwealth University. He has been working in higher ed for over 10 years with a focus on financial management at various levels. In conjunction with the Universities Budget Director, he is responsible for the development and monitoring of the University’s budget of over $1.1 billion. In addition, he is responsible for the development and implementation of the University Budget Re-design initiative, an RCM style budget model, from an incremental model. Finally, he leads a team in the development and implementation of a multi-year financial planning tool for senior leadership and the development and implementation of budget plans for the universities strategic initiatives. Over his career, he has been the Associate Dean for Business and Administration for a School of Nursing, the Director of Administration for the Center of Clinical and Translational Science and has work in various roles with a School of Medicine. David is a CPA with a master’s degree in accounting and information systems and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Health Administration.
Cheryl Y. Wayne is a graduate of Tuskegee University with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science and a Master of Education Specializing in Counseling and Student Development. Cheryl was a student-athlete, received a 4-year basketball scholarship, and received her ROTC commission from Tuskegee University. Twenty-three years later she retired as a Lieutenant Colonel from the United States Air Force. During her time in the military, she received her JD from Howard University School of Law. In the Air Force, she had highly visible leadership positions such as Executive Officer, Director of Equal Employment Opportunity, Commander, and Inspector General. Since then, Cheryl has been the Director for Equal Employment for Kennesaw State University, and Regional Equal Employment Opportunity DoD- Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA). Cheryl is the owner of CWayne & Associates doing contract EEO Investigation, Alternate Dispute Resolution, and Training for Federal Agencies. In addition to being an EEO Investigator, she is also a certified trained mediator. Cheryl worked as the Title IX Investigator and Diversity Consultant in the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity at DePaul University, where she investigated complex cases of domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and sexual harassment for faculty, staff, and students. Cheryl […]
In her current role at St. John’s University, Liz leads academic initiatives that include the development of digital learning strategies in campus-based programs and online/hybrid degree and certificate program development. Additionally, she supervises the Office of Online Learning and Services, co-chairs the University Assessment Committee, and serves as a member of the Middle States Steering Committee, Academic and Administrative Assembly, and Provost’s Council. Ciabocchi teaches in the Department of Administrative and Instructional Leadership in the SJU School of Education. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) and is an OLC Fellow (Class of 2015). Liz frequently presents at higher education conferences on institutional leadership & strategy and online learning leadership, which are her research interests as well. She also serves as an accreditation evaluator and member of the Substantive Change Committee for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Liz holds an Ed.D. in Higher and Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, a D.C. from New York Chiropractic College, and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Scranton.
Erika Veth has ten years of experience working in higher education in both faculty and administrator roles, primarily in the field of online education. Veth currently oversees Admissions, Financial Aid, Retention, Educational Partnerships, and Online Education at Oregon Tech, a public polytechnic university. Her experience in the field of distance education includes teaching online and hybrid courses at the University of Alaska Anchorage and working as an Online Support Services Manager. Veth is currently teaching an online graduate course at Oregon Tech and is wrapping up the dissertation phase of her Doctorate in Education in Higher Education Leadership and Management at Capella University. Strategic planning for online growth, in alignment with Veth’s doctoral dissertation (Marketing and Recruitment for Online Program Enrollment Growth at Small Public Universities), has proven fruitful as fully online program enrollment has more than doubled during her time as leader of the online campus. Veth has also worked to improve Oregon Tech Online’s services, including the development of a Faculty Recording Studio, professional advising, use of telepresence robots to increase accessibility for students who are place-bound and desiring synchronous course access, and initiating a plan for digital badging and micro-credentialing.
Phil is an independent consultant to higher education institutions with more than 35 years of experience and service to the higher education community. His areas of emphasis are assisting boards and finance committees in financial strategy, financial planning and metrics, financial reporting processes, and understanding stewardship responsibilities related to donor funds. He has also assisted institutions in their business processes, IT systems, grants management, debt management, and accounting and finance areas. He is a retired partner from KPMG, LLP, having served more than 100 colleges and universities as an auditor and consultant. While at KPMG, LLP, he also served public and private clients in other industries such as real estate, real estate finance, financial institutions, high technology, and manufacturing. He also served for a number of years as Controller at Johns Hopkins University. Having worked with a large number of boards of companies and higher education institutions, he brings perspectives from multiple industries and entity size to his clients. Mr. Tahey has co-authored several editions of Strategic Financial Analysis for Higher Education: Identifying, Measuring & Reporting Financial Risks, which is the source publication for the Composite Financial Index (CFI). He is also a co-author of Bridging the Strategic Gap: Toward […]
Ron Salluzzo is a partner in the Higher Education practice at Attain, LLC. He is responsible for the strategic financial services and enterprise risk services delivered to its clients. In his 45 years as an experienced executive, he has served in both line and staff capacities for professional services organizations, including senior partner at KPMG, serving as national industry leader for higher education; chief financial officer and chief risk officer for public companies; and leader of the North American business unit for a technology consulting firm. He possesses substantial board experience, having served on more than 15 boards throughout his career, including significant involvement at executive and audit and finance committee levels. He currently serves on the board of trustees at Stevens Institute of Technology and on the advisory board of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. He previously was a vice chair of the board of trustees of St. Bonaventure University. Mr. Salluzzo is co-author of Strategic Financial Analysis for Higher Education: Identifying, Measuring & Reporting Financial Risks. This is a highly regarded series related to financial measurement of institutional progress on strategic initiatives and overall institutional financial health. Most recently he co-authored Bridging the […]
Jonathan brings more than a decade of higher education administrative experience to his position and is the former president of the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences. He is also a past president of the New Jersey Communication Association and a member of the editorial board of the Atlantic Journal of Communication. His research on conflict resolution was published in Mediation Quarterly, Human Communication, and Human Systems. His work on political discourse appears in the Atlantic Journal of Communication, Studies of Communication in the 2012 Presidential Campaign, and You Shook Me All Campaign Long: Music in the 2016 Presidential Election and Beyond. In addition, Jonathan studied code-switching resulting in publications found in Human Communication and Communication and Immigration. Jonathan has worked with hundreds of institutional leaders including department chairs, assistant and associate deans, and deans across the academy. His areas of expertise include effective and impactful communication, conflict resolution, and shared governance. Named to the Princeton Review’s Best 300 Professors, he has a passion for teaching a wide array of communication courses as well as a class on the social impact of rock and roll.
