DET/CHE 29 2014 Annual Conference December 2-5 in Long Beach, CA
DET/CHE 2014 Keynote Speakers
Eden Dahlstrom
Tuesday, December 2nd from 5:00-6:00 p.m.
About Eden Dahlstrom
Eden Dahlstrom is the Director of Research for the Data, Research, and Analytics unit at EDUCAUSE. She oversees research initiatives on the topics that matter most to the higher education IT community. She is also the principal investigator for the annually recursive research on undergraduate students' technology experiences and expectations hosted by the EDUCAUSE Center for Analysis and Research (http://www.educause.edu/ecar/about-ecar/ecar-annual-study-students-and-it).
Before joining the Data, Research, and Analytics team at EDUCAUSE in 2011, she served in a variety of roles in academic and not-for-profit organizations. Most recently, she directed the Analytics division of an organization that promoted the use of data for making informed decisions to improve education policy and practice. She has experience as a higher education institutional researcher; a research analyst for an inter-segmental, longitudinal data system; and a leader in a professional organization that serves institutional researchers.
Twitter @DataDeeva
She has led initiatives that involved standardizing data for systematic warehousing; creating systems for reporting common metrics for higher education attainment outcomes; developing and managing inter-segmental, longitudinal databases; and applying business intelligence tools to provide data on demand opportunities for education stakeholders. In addition to data, analytics, and research-related experiences, Eden has also taught sociology courses, led a statewide initiative to vertically align math and English curriculum with secondary and post-secondary educators, and been a community college administrator.
She has an Ed.D. from the University of Southern California and is trained and practiced in the action research model. Her research is guided by two complementary principles: 1) data are most useful when transformed into information, and 2) information is only useful if it is accessible and understandable by the intended audience.
Ken O'Donnell
Wednesday, December 3rd from 9:00-10:00 a.m.
About Ken O'Donnell
Ken O’Donnell works in Academic Affairs at the Office of the Chancellor of the California State University. The CSU is the world’s largest public system of four-year universities, enrolling over 400,000 students on 23 campuses around the state. Situated between the open-enrollment community colleges and the selective UC system of research universities, the CSU is the state’s engine of economic growth and upward mobility, making high-quality education affordable and accessible. Many of its students are underrepresented minorities, economically disadvantaged, or the first in their families to attend college. 60% of each graduating class transfers in from somewhere else.
In this context Ken works on statewide curriculum, with a focus on student engagement and success and the state’s shared coursework in general education. All students take GE, regardless of their major or college of origin. This learning often comes early in their path to degree, and sets the pace for the rest of their time in college.
In 2008 he was named by the Executive Vice Chancellor as state liaison to the AAC&U’s national project Give Students a Compass, which seeks to infuse high-impact educational practice into the lower-division college curriculum. In 2010 he was appointed to the NASH/EdTrust campaign Access to Success, a national effort to raise graduation rates and reduce achievement gaps. In 2011 his portfolio was expanded to include implementation of a new law streamlining transfer in popular majors.
In 2012 Ken was asked to create a new department in the Office of the Chancellor, leading system office work around Student Engagement and Academic Initiatives & Partnerships. His day to day work is with faculty and administrators throughout the California State University, with a professional interest in ePortfolios, learning outcomes assessment, and engaging, student-focused pedagogy and curriculum. He has addressed numerous conferences and workshops around the country on general education, and the role of public state systems in educational reform.
For ten years before coming to the CSU Ken was a member of the screenwriting faculty and an assistant dean at the film school at Chapman University. He and his wife Cyndi live in Southern California.
Candace Thille
Thursday, December 4th, 8:00pm
About Candice Thille
Dr. Candace Thille is an Assistant Professor of Education at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and Senior Research Fellow for the Office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning. She is also the founding director of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on applying results from the learning sciences to the design, implementation, and evaluation of open web-based learning environments. Dr. Thille serves as a redesign scholar for the National Center for Academic Transformation; as a fellow of the International Society for Design and Development in Education; on the Assessment 2020 Task Force of the American Board of Internal Medicine; on the technical advisory committee for the Association of American Universities STEM initiative; and on the Global Executive Advisory board for Hewlett Packard’s Catalyst Initiative. She served on a U.S. Department of Education working group, co-authoring the “National Education Technology Plan,” and on the working group of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology that produced the “Engage to Excel” report for improving STEM education.