2023 Leadership Program

Project Management requires leaders to use their skills and knowledge to organize appropriate projects to propel their programs and university/college goals. As Educational Technology continues to evolve in light of the pandemic and increase in student need for learning flexibilities, leaders are tasked with managing multiple projects simultaneously. In this presentation, Dr. Kienzle will present common Project Management processes and apply them to current and past projects she has carried out such as educational technology tool adoption and creating sustainable online pathways for degrees and certificates.

Dr. Jennifer Kienzle attained her Ph.D. in Interpersonal and Intergroup Communication, specializing in emerging media in online spaces from University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Dr. Kienzle has researched and taught about emerging media and new technologies at community colleges and at public and private universities in Communication Studies departments. Right before the pandemic, Dr. Kienzle worked as a Distance Education Coordinator and held many positions in shared governance committees locally and statewide related to distance education before taking the role of Associate Dean of Online Learning. Dr. Kienzle is passionate about transparent leadership and ensuring that students, faculty, and staff have a voice at the decision making table.

July 14, 12:00-1:30 PM

Intentional IT for Education: Launching, Aligning and Optimizing Core IT Services to Advance the Education Mission (Maggie Beers, UC San Francisco)

Dr. Maggie Beers is the inaugural Associate Chief Information Officer for Education at the University of California, San Francisco, where she manages enterprise education technology applications that enhance the health professions schools and graduate division, in all aspects of their education mission. Previously, Maggie was at San Francisco State University, where she was the Executive Director for Academic Technology, the Assistant Vice President for Teaching and Learning, and led the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CEETL).
Maggie is passionate about providing faculty and students universal access to a diverse array of inclusive and empowering learning experiences and technologies. Her current research interests include designing and scaling equitable and inclusive learning spaces, organizational change management, and eliminating equity gaps through faculty design teams within communities of practice.
In June of 2020, UCSF paid hackers $1.14 million dollars in bitcoin after a ransomware attack threatened the integrity of institutional data. This prompted UCSF to take a deep look into the root cause of this breach and their technology support for the three mission areas of the enterprise: Patient Care, Research, and Education. This effort revealed these core service gaps within central IT services, especially related to the education mission:

• A shared understanding on how best to support the education communities while mitigating security risks, to establish trust and collaboration.
• A comprehensive and fully funded set of IT capabilities to support the current and rapidly changing needs of the education and research communities, to reduce the need for home-grown solutions.
• Organizational accountability required to implement IT security consistently across our decentralized structure, to eliminate variability in adoption of secure measures.
• Clear direction to the community on how to comply with security policies and standards.

In response, UCSF has established a transformative IT Operating Model and Helix organizational structure that puts the technology needs of education at the center of all decision-making and resourcing for core IT systems. This presentation will share the leadership frameworks, processes and governance structures that UCSF has established and leveraged to prioritize the needs of the education mission within central IT discussions, and align institutional resources and efforts to ensure digital equity for learners, faculty and education support staff.

September 8, 12:00-1:30 PM

Colleagues and Mentoring (Laura Rantala and Hussam Kashou, Long Beach City College)

Laura Rantala is the Online Learning Program Manager for Long Beach City College in the Office of OLET. Additionally she has been a PT faculty member in the Learning & Academic Resources Department where she teaches Learn 11 online. She holds an MPA and a BA in Sociology from CSU, Long Beach. Laura has been at LBCC since 2011. Her passion revolves around meeting students where they are in their learning and growth. She began in the Multidisciplinary Success Center as an Instructional Coordinator, then moved to IT where she, in collaboration with OLET/IT/LBCC, developed LBCC’s first student facing Student Technology Help Desk. She is a lifelong learner and has a passion for online learning & support.

Hussam Kashou is an experienced visionary and transformational leader who is passionate about innovation, research and leadership in higher ed, online ed, IT, educational technology, educational psychology and student success/engagement. Dr. Kashou attained his Ph.D. in Educational Policy & Leadership specializing in Educational Technology and Educational Psychology from The Ohio State University (OSU) where he has over 15 years experience in various academic and leadership roles. In 2014, Dr. Kashou joined Long Beach City College (LBCC) where he serves as Dean of Online Learning, Educational Technology, & Learning Resources, leading the OLET division (Online Education and Programs, Instructional Technology Development Centers and Educational Technology) and the Learning & Academic Resources (LAR) Division (Multidisciplinary Success Centers, Tutoring Centers, Academic Computing Labs, Center for Learning Assistance and College & Workplace Readiness Programs and Courses).

In this session we will be using the Learning Type Measure (LTM) assessment as a critical thinking tool to take a closer look at how we has humans process, perceive, and take action when communicating, mentoring, and working with others. By understanding ourselves and how we approach meetings, strategic planning goals, emails, conversations, and directions, we can then expand our understanding of how our teams successfully function and work together. Additionally, we will delve into the "Why?", "What?", "How?", and "What If?" thinking processes and watching/doing approach to learning and reaching goals.

September 22, 12:00-1:30 PM

Planning and Budgeting (Kathy Fernandes, Chico State)

Kathy Fernandes is the Academic Technology Officer at California State University Chico. She leads responsible for academic technology planning, faculty support and development, specifically for integrating technology into the curriculum for greater student success, including providing inclusive instructional materials.

Previously, Kathy managed a variety of CSU system-wide projects for Academic Technology Services in the Office of the Chancellor. She worked amongst the 23 campuses in support of top Academic Affairs priorities, including Bb Ally for inclusive instructional materials, Reducing Bottlenecks and Improving Student Success, Learning Management Systems Services and other multi-campus learning technology projects which seek to scale exemplary practices across the CSU, create economies of scale to reduce costs, develop shared services to increase shared expertise, and/or incubate innovations to enable campus technology adoption in a successful manner. Kathy supported the CSU Directors of Academic Technologies which includes managing, communicating and negotiating with vendors who provide technology and services to many of our campuses.

Previously Kathy worked for 25 years at Chico State. Her last position was Director of Academic Technologies managing 33 staff and 30 students with a $2M budget that included responsibility for the campus learning management system, the faculty technology and learning program, classroom technology services, web services, online and distance education delivery, media production services, print and computer graphics, photography, grants and state contracts.

Kathy has an MA in Instructional Technology, BS in Computer Science and BA in Mathematics. She attended the Frye Leadership Institute in June 2007.

Budgets are really an art...they are never exact and like playing darts, you won't probably hit a bullseye very often. This presentation will share tips and tricks to creating and managing a budget. Whether you are experienced or a beginner in budgeting, this session gives participants time to engage with each other to learn from each other. Why? Because managing a budget is usually not something that is taught to new administrators and like riding a bike, requires getting "a feel" for how to do it.

October 13, 12:00-1:30 PM

Attracting, Retaining and Working with Diverse Technology Leadership (Marina Aminy, California Virtual Campus)

Marina Aminy is an equity-minded leader, strategist, and speaker in higher education, with expertise in instructional technology, online education, teaching, and learning. She is currently the Executive Director of the California Virtual Campus, a state-wide initiative to help students accelerate completion of their educational goals through access to high-quality online courses and programs across the 115 California Community Colleges. Marina is passionate about supporting students in all environments through intentional, equity-minded practices, design, policies, and innovations. She holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, and has over 20 years of experience in education and technology.

This session will explore ways in which institutions (and individuals) can attract, support, retain, and work with diverse leaders in instructional technology. We'll discuss both how institutions can do this work, as well as the role that individuals can play on individual college teams. Strategies include paying close attention to the language that we use in our outreach, the ways in which we speak to and about our diverse colleagues, acknowledgements of experiences, and revisiting the very nature of the work that we undertake to ensure representation and inclusion.

November 3, 12:00-1:30 PM

Scaling Grassroots Change in California Public Higher Ed (Michelle Pacansky-Brock, California Virtual Campus)

Michelle has been an advocate for quality, equitable online education in California for more than twenty years. She has served in both the California Community College and California State University systems in faculty, staff, and administrative roles. Originally, Michelle followed her love for teaching into the classroom as an art history instructor. Soon thereafter, she taught her first online class and was fascinated at the opportunities and challenges of online education to serve diverse learners and foster upward social mobility for Californians. Her work in humanized online teaching explores the intersection of technology, learning, and emotions, and centers the experiences of students who are generally left out of higher ed research. Michelle has received national recognition for her online teaching and research from the Online Learning Consortium (OLC); authored more than twenty articles and one book; served in leadership roles for OLC, EDUCAUSE, and the National Science Foundation; consulted for edtech companies; edited an issue of the Journal for Educational Research and Practice; and has delivered more than 30 presentations to audiences across North American since 2021. Since 2019, Michelle has led two grants totaling $2 million, that are scaling humanized online teaching in STEM courses across California. The project has been featured in EdTech magazine and the EDUCAUSE Horizon Report.