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.
Mike Petroff is a senior product manager at Harvard Business Publishing, where he manages the ongoing development of the Higher Education website used by a global audience of business students and educators. He defines the roadmap to advance customer acquisition, search and discovery, and user engagement. Previously, Mike was the director of content strategy at Harvard University, where he found innovative and effective ways to bring Harvard stories to the world through digital platforms. His team produced, distributed, and measured multi-channel content for flagship properties including Harvard.edu and associated websites, the Harvard Gazette, email newsletters, and evolving social media and mobile platforms. Outside of Harvard, Mike regularly presents at conferences including Confab, SXSW Interactive, ContentEd London, and CASE on content strategy, social media, and analytics. Before joining Harvard, Mike led web marketing, content development, and online recruitment efforts for Emerson College’s Enrollment and Financial Aid Office.
In addition to clocking more cell-phone hours in airports and rental cars than George Clooney in Up in the Air, Elizabeth is a nationally recognized expert in the use of research to drive marketing and branding efforts. With over 25 years of experience conducting market research studies, she’s an industry leader in providing strategic marketing solutions to colleges and universities. An expert in survey instrument design, sampling plan development, data analysis, and the compilation and presentation of marketing intelligence, Elizabeth pioneered the transition to data-driven marketing strategies in higher education. She’s presented more than 200 workshops and papers at a veritable alphabet soup of higher education-related conferences and symposia, and chaired the American Marketing Association’s Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education from 2007 to 2011.
Valerie Eickmeier recently retired after serving 20 years as the Dean of the Herron School of Art and Design at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). During her tenure as dean, Eickmeier led the charge to raise more than $42 million for her school during three university-wide campaigns. Funding for capital projects, endowed faculty chairs, scholarships, international programs, new graduate programs, gallery operating, community engagement, endowment support for faculty research and unrestricted operating has all been part of the successful effort. She has extensive experience in strategic planning for development, organizing campaigns, volunteer management and developing advisory boards, creating annual giving opportunities and establishing legacy endowments.
In his current role at Chapman University, Chris leads a team whose purpose is to strategically prospect, manage, and address the major gift funding priorities for the university, as identified by the senior leadership, as well as the priorities for each school/college, as identified by its dean. Chris graduated from Chapman University’s Argyros School of Business and Economics receiving his bachelors in business administration and his MBA in 2006. During that time, he worked for ten years with Walt Disney Company before moving into development in both private high school and college levels.
Dr. Lisa Webb has over 15 years of professional experience in the development, implementation, and evaluation of student programs and academic support services in high school and graduate health sciences education, as well as management of health career pipeline programs. Dr. Webb is responsible for the overall management of VCU Pipeline programs and all academic support service programs for graduate and professional health sciences students at the university. Dr. Webb has served as Principal Investigator on federally funded programs through the U.S. Department of Education, and is an experienced program evaluator. In her current role, Dr. Webb’s primary responsibility is to ensure the alignment of academic, disability and pipeline programs at VCU with university and health system priorities. She is a certified rehabilitation counselor (CRC), with a Master of Science in Rehabilitation Counseling and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership, both from VCU. Her areas of research interest are in impact evaluations of health career pipeline programs, and implementation evaluations of new initiatives within higher education administration.
