Presenters
Dr. Adrian joined the Coast Community College District as the sixth president of Coastline Community College on July 1, 2010. Coastline is one of the three colleges in the Coast District. Founded originally as a “college without walls,” Coastline is one of the nation’s most innovative colleges and is deeply committed to a “students-first” philosophy. Coastline currently has three campuses in Orange County. A beautiful and sustainable new campus will open in Newport Beach in July 2012. Coastline brings on-site classes to students close to their homes locally, and through Distance Learning nationally and internationally.
Dr. Adrian has been an educational leader for over twenty years. Prior to joining Coastline, she served as the vice president of student services at Skyline College in the Bay Area from 2005-2010. As the chief student services officer, Dr. Adrian provided leadership for a comprehensive array of student service programs aimed at facilitating student success and fostering a strong connection to diverse students. In collaboration with instruction, she developed and implemented student-centered programs and services, e. g., learning communities for Latino, African-American, and Filipino students. She provided leadership for the Foundations of Excellence in the First Year Experience Project, which subsequently informed Skyline’s Basic Skills Self Study and the College Success Initiative. From November 1992-August 2005, Dr. Adrian worked as dean of student affairs, interim dean of student development and matriculation, and acting vice president of student services at San Diego Mesa College. Dr. Adrian spent ten years of her career working with international students from around the world, both at the University of the Pacific (a private four-year university) and at San Joaquin Delta College.
In addition to her U.S. higher education background, Dr. Adrian worked as an intercultural trainer/project director for the U. S. Peace Corps for six years. She designed and managed cultural, linguistic, and technical orientation and retraining programs for American Peace Corps volunteers who were assigned to the Philippines. Working with a prominent linguistics scholar, she helped develop dictionaries in English and various Philippine languages, and documented the oral literature of diverse Philippine ethno-linguistic groups. These experiences provided a strong foundation for her commitment to intercultural competencies and diversity.
Dr. Lori Adrian holds a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Education from Claremont Graduate University. She has a master’s degree in Communication Theory from the University of the Pacific and a bachelor’s degree in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines, with a minor in linguistics.
In her professional career as an educator, a scholar, and a leader, Dr. Karen Haynes has gone from social worker to social transformer.
When she arrived at Cal State San Marcos in 2004 to begin her second university presidency, she brought with her a reputation for building the kind of institutions where people want to come to work, to study, and to initiate lasting partnerships. Now beginning her sixth year as President, she has continued that kind of building to make Cal State San Marcos the driving force to address the needs of its rapidly growing region. Under her leadership, Cal State San Marcos has won acclaim for excellence in 21st-century learning... for building educational access and equity... for institutional accountability... and for community engagement and transformational regional impact.
President Haynes holds a doctorate in social work from the University of Texas in Austin. She is the Presidential Sponsor for the American Council on Education's Southern California Network of Women in Higher Education, and she serves on the regional boards of the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and the San Diego Economic Development Corporation. She was honored in 2007 with the San Diego YWCA's Top Women in Industry Award for contributions to the community and the San Diego Business Journal's "Women Who Mean Business" Award. She and her husband and co-author, Jim Mickelson, are working on the seventh edition of their landmark text, "Affecting Change: Social Workers in the Political Arena."
Dr. Barbara Kaufman, President of ROI Consulting Group, Inc. has invested over twenty-five years as an executive, business coach and educator in helping organizations increase their leadership effectiveness. As a trusted advisor to leaders in business and the non-profit sector, Dr. Kaufman combines executive experience with practical and creative guidance on ways to increase leadership effectiveness and organizational capacity. Her work has involved issues such as strategic planning, governance, leadership effectiveness, resiliency, executive coaching, team building, conflict management and organization design.
Dr. Kaufman's years on the inside of Fortune 500 to mid-size companies in executive-level positions have been followed by sixteen years as an entrepreneur and management consultant. Dr. Kaufman's clients include a wide-range of non-profit and public sector organizations such as, the American Council on Education (ACE), California State University, University of California, University of North Carolina, University of Nebraska, College of Staten Island (CSI), St. Norbert College, The College Board, Research Triangle Institute, International and the Association of Governing Boards (AGB). Over the past several years, she has also focused on helping Presidents and Chancellors, along with their governance and advisory boards, increase their effectiveness through improved leadership and creative problem-solving. Areas of interest include developing research-based strategies for performance assessment, governance (leadership and infrastructure), strategic planning, succession planning, managing board diversity, creating effective board orientations and other related topics.
A committed volunteer who contributes both her time and resources to professional development organizations, Dr. Kaufman is an advisor to and past-president of Leadership California, a non-profit organization devoted to educational programs and furthering the advancement of women leaders in business, government, education and other public and private arenas. She is the 1998 recipient of the prestigious Leadership California Leader award for her program design and board development efforts over the past eight years. Dr. Kaufman is a memeber of the Chief Learning Officer Business Intelligence Network board. Other volunteer efforts include the Advisory Board of Leadership California, the Women's Leadership Forum, the Association of Governing Boards and the Achieving Styles Institute.
Dr. Kaufman received her Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University (CGU). She served as the Leader-in-Residence for the academic year 1998-1999 at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Leadership, located at the Peter Drucker School of Management (CGU), where she earned her Masters in Executive Management. Dr. Kaufman often serves as an adjunct professor at Claremont Graduate University, where she teaches courses in leadership and talent management. She is also a certified consultant for the Association of Governing Boards in the areas of presidential assessment and board development, as well as a certified instructor in the use of the Connective Leadership Achieving Styles Model.
Dr. Kaufman's recent publications include Don't Stop Thinking About the Future: Surviving budget cuts to keep professional development and the insitutional mission moving forward (February 2011, University Business) Landmines Ahead: Why smart, newly appointed leaders derail (Summer 2010, University Business) Working with Consultants: Look before you leap (December 2008, University Business) Reining in Those "Maverick" Trustees (July-August 2007, AGB, Trusteeship). Organizational Champions (July/August 2006, Board Member), The Helping Hand (March 2006, University Business), The Leader as Change Agent (March 2005, University Business), En Route to Executive Retention (January 2005, American Society of Association Executives, January 2005), The Juggling Act (July 2004, University Business), The Role of Executive Coaching in Performance Management (September 2005, Journal of Business Strategy), and Succession Planning Means Planning Ahead (February/March 2003, Board Member).
Dr. Jolene Koester began her appointment as the fourth president of California State University, Northridge on July 1, 2000. The Board of Trustees of the California State University (CSU) formally announced their appointment of Dr. Koester as president on November 16, 1999.
Prior to her appointment, Dr. Koester served as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at California State University, Sacramento, a post she had held since 1993. Before her service as provost, she held other executive positions in the academic affairs division at Sacramento State, and was a faculty member there, as a professor of communication studies, since 1980. She earned a Bachelor's of Arts from the University of Minnesota in 1970, a Master's of Arts in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1971, and a Ph.D. in speech communication from Minnesota in 1980.
As an active member of the community, Dr. Koester serves on the boards of directors for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley, and the Valley Industry and Commerce Association. She also is a board member of the Los Angeles World Affairs Council and the Los Angeles Jobs and Economy Committee. Known nationally for her leadership in the area of higher education, she is a past chair of the Board of Directors for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. For the CSU, she serves on the Systemwide Budget Advisory Committee, the Human Resources Advisory Group, the Systemwide Admission Advisory Council, the Presidents' Council on Underserved Communities, the Housing Review Committee, and the Technology Steering Committee. Dr. Koester has been recognized for her leadership in the community with the 2004 Pioneer Woman Award for Los Angeles City Council District 12, presented by the Los Angeles Commission on the Status of Women and the Los Angeles City Council; the Armand Arabian Leaders in Public Service Award given by the Encino Chamber of Commerce in 2002; and a "Woman Who Means Business" Award given by the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, also in 2002. In 2003, Dr. Koester accepted a Star of the Valley Award from the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley on behalf of the University.
Since her arrival at the University, Dr. Koester has been committed to furthering the excellence of Cal State Northridge. Under her leadership, the University remains accessible to qualified students, maintains its historical commitment to diversity, and has achieved record levels of fund raising. The University also continues to play an indispensable role in the community and the region. At the beginning of her presidency, Dr. Koester identified several goals to serve as the focus of the campus' efforts. These include improving graduation rates, creating a user-friendly campus, strengthening the University's connections to the community, and increasing fundraising. In fall 2009, the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees of The California State University (CSU) completed their third three-year performance evaluation of President Koester. The public summary stated that Dr. Koester "continues to deliver superior performance as president of a very large urban university…. [and] is a leader among CSU presidents as well as the national higher education community."
Cal State Northridge is one of the largest campuses in the 23-campus California State University system. Founded in 1958, the University has grown to encompass 356 acres, with more than 32,000 diverse students and nearly 4,000 employees. As a comprehensive university, Cal State Northridge offers more than 90 different degrees at the bachelor's and master's levels in more than 60 different majors. In 2008, the institution celebrated its 50th anniversary as the only public university located in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, home to about 1.8 million residents.
Dr. Michele Nealon-Woods is President of The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, one of the leading non-profit graduate schools in the country focused exclusively on psychology and related behavioral sciences. The Chicago School has campuses in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, Chicago and Grayslake, and Washington, D.C., and serves over 4,000 students in both on-ground and online-blended graduate programs.
Prior to assuming the institution's top leadership position, Dr. Nealon-Woods served--and continues to serve--as the first president of The Chicago School’s Los Angeles Campus, overseeing its growth and the addition of campuses in Westwood and Irvine, Calif. An alumna of the school’s doctoral program in Clinical Psychology, she was a faculty member and chair of the same program in at the Chicago Campus before moving to California. As a faculty member, Dr. Nealon-Woods received The Chicago School's 2006 Distinguished Teaching Award in the area of public service teaching.
Dr. Nealon-Woods began her career in clinical psychology in Dublin, Ireland. She moved to the United States in 1994 and worked with adolescents in group home and foster care until 2000. She has worked in a variety of clinical settings with diverse groups of people including inpatient, outpatient, community mental health, forensic, and academic settings. As a licensed clinical psychologist, she specializes in the treatment of children, adolescents, and their families.
In addition to her doctoral degree from The Chicago School, Dr. Nealon-Woods received a B.A. and M.A. from University College in Dublin, Ireland.
