Dr. Robert Nash
Conference Opening Speaker
Sunday, October 3, 2010, 5:00 pm

Robert J. Nash has been a professor in the College of Education and Social Services, University of Vermont, Burlington, for 41 years. He specializes in philosophy of education, applied ethics, higher education, and religion, spirituality, and education. He holds graduate degrees in English, Theology/Religious Studies, Applied Ethics and Liberal Studies, and Educational Philosophy. He holds faculty appointments in teacher education, higher education administration, and interdisciplinary studies in education. He administers the Interdisciplinary Master’s Program, and he teaches applied ethics, religion, higher education, and philosophy of education courses, as well as scholarly personal narrative writing seminars (a genre of writing that he created), across four programs in the college, including the doctoral program in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. He has supervised over 100 theses and dissertations. He has published more than 100 articles in many of the leading journals in education at all levels. He has also published several book chapters, monographs, and essay book reviews. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Religion & Education, and one of its frequent contributors.  Since 1996, he has published ten books (all still in print), several of them national award winners. 

He has done a variety of consultancies throughout the country for a number of human service organizations, public schools, and colleges and universities. He is a frequent, featured speaker at the national level. In 2003, he was named the Official University Scholar in the Social Sciences and the Humanities at The University of Vermont, only the second faculty member in the history of the College of Education and Social Services to be so honored. In 2009, he received the Joseph Anthony Abruscato Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship at the University of Vermont. In 2010, he was the recipient of the Gordon Fielding Lewis Award for Excellence in Teaching and Research by Pi Gamma Mu Honor Society, the largest social sciences honor society in the United States.

Dr. DeMethra LaSha Bradley
Special Guest Speaker

Dr. DeMethra LaSha Bradley is a scholar and practitioner at the University of Vermont. She serves as Assistant Dean for Student Administration in the College of Education and Social Services at the University of Vermont. Dr. Bradley is also a lecturer within the college. Her scholarly personal narrative dissertation earned her the CESS Outstanding Academics and Service Award.

 Dr. Bradley is the second author of the national best seller, How to Talk About Hot Topics on Campus: From Polarization to Moral Conversation (co-authors Dr. Robert J. Nash and Dr. Arthur W. Chickering), published by Jossey-Bass/Wiley in 2008. She has also co-authored book chapters in Searching for Spirituality in Higher Education (2007) and The American University in a Postsecular Age: Religion and the Academy (2007). The latter title was a recent recipient of the highly prestigious Lilly Fellows Program Book Award.

Dr. Bradley received the American College Personnel Association’s Annuit Coeptis award for outstanding achievements as a scholar and a practitioner, and has been recognized by NASPA-Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education with an Outstanding New Professional Award. She is a national speaker on the topics of moral conversation, applied ethics, religion and spirituality, and scholarly personal narrative methodology. 

Currently, Dr. Bradley (along side Dr. Robert J. Nash) are writing a “how-to” manual for scholarly personal narrative writers. Although she hails from Los Angeles, California, Dr. Bradley has called Vermont home since 2003.

Dr. Nancy Zimpher, SUNY Chancellor
Keynote Speaker
Monday, October 4, 2010, 9:00 am

In June 1, 2009, Dr. Zimpher became the 12th Chancellor of the State University of New York by  unanimous vote of the SUNY Board of Trustees. With more than 440,000 students, SUNY is the nation’s largest comprehensive public university system.  As the first academic in recent memory to be appointed Chancellor, she is also the first woman to serve in this capacity in the system’s 60-year history. A dynamic and nationally-recognized leader, Chancellor Zimpher is known as an effective agent of change in higher education.  The Chancellor began her career as a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in the Ozarks and has never lost her passion for providing accessible, quality education for every student.

Chancellor Zimpher began her work at SUNY with a statewide tour of SUNY’s 64 campuses, and has engaged a strategic  planning process for the SUNY system that will serve as a model for statewide collaboration for public higher education in New York State and beyond.   She has authored or co-authored numerous books, monographs and academic journal articles on teacher education, urban education, academic leadership, and school/university partnerships. 

 Chancellor Zimpher holds a bachelor’s degree in English Education and Speech, a master’s degree in English Literature, and a Ph.D. in Teacher Education and Higher Education Administration, all from The Ohio State University.

Dr. Bonita Jacobs
Conference Closing Speaker
Tuesday, October 5, 2010, 11:30 am

Dr. Bonita C. Jacobs is the Executive Director of the National Institute for the Study of Transfer Students and an Associate Professor at the University of North Texas, a research university of over 36,000 students.  She holds B.A. and M.Ed. degrees in Spanish and counseling from Stephen F. Austin State University with additional studies in Morelia and Monterrey, Mexico, and a Ph.D. in educational administration from Texas A & M University.  She was Vice Chancellor for Student Development at Western Carolina University prior to assuming a position as Vice President for Student Development at UNT, a position she held for eleven years.

She is a former editor of The Journal of College Orientation and Transition and is the recipient of numerous awards including:  “Outstanding Contributions to the Orientation Profession Award” and “The President’s Award” from NODA, “Ted. K. Miller Achievement of Excellence Award” from the Council for the Advancement of Standards (CAS), “John Jones Award for Outstanding Performance as a Senior Student Affairs Officer” from NASPA Region III,  and NASPA “Gold Excellence Award” for the UNT Student Money Management Center.

Dr. Jacobs has served as Faculty for the ACPA “Mid-Level Management Institute;”  President of the Texas Association of College and University Student Personnel Administrators; Board Member for the APLU Council on Student Affairs, and Advisory Board Member for the “National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience & Students in Transition.”