2023 Leadership Program
Program Leads
Advisory Committee
Laura Rantala
Kenji Ikemoto
John Bansavich, Ed.D.
Hussam Kashou, PhD
2023 Cohort
Topics & Dates
April 14, 12:00-1:00 PM
Welcome To The Program, Meet Your Cohort, Introduction To The Canvas Course
Program details, meet and greet, and how to navigate our Canvas Course.
April 28, 12:00-1:30 PM
Leading the Future: Strategic Planning and Transformational Leadership (Rudy J. Sanchez, Fresno State)
This interactive session will cover the basics of strategic planning. Topics will include practical ideas on how to facilitate strategic planning in the higher educational technology space; SWOT analysis; developing metrics for assessing progress on strategy; and communicating strategy across the university. We will also explore transformational leadership as a possible resource to facilitate strategic planning.
Rudy J. Sanchez, Ph.D., serves as a Professor of Management in the Craig School of Business at California State University, Fresno. Rudy has held several administrative roles at Fresno State including Interim Associate Vice President for Academic and Institutional Effectiveness. In that role, Rudy was responsible for facilitating the vision and strategic direction for the Center for Faculty Excellence and Office of Institutional Effectiveness. Rudy provided strategic and operational leadership to Fresno State’s COVID-19 pivot to virtual instruction. He was the co-developer of Fresno State’s University-wide President's Leadership Academy and faculty/staff mentoring program. He also served as the university’s senior academic technology officer. He led the development of the teaching and learning aspects of Fresno State's mobile learning program (DISCOVERe) launched in 2014.
Rudy previously served as president of the Directors of Educational Technology in California Higher Education (DET/CHE). Rudy currently serves on the board of directors for the Network for Change and Continuous Innovation. At Fresno State Rudy has facilitated or participated in the development of strategic plans for the Divisions of Academic Affairs, Division of Research and Graduate Studies, and Technology Services; three colleges; and several administrative units. He is a Prosci certified Change Management Practitioner. Rudy is an award-winning teacher and highly rated trainer. He conducts research and facilitates workshops in the areas of leadership, innovation, strategy, and educational technology.
June 9, 12:00-1:30 PM
UC Online, A System-Wide Program: Building Consensus to Support and Promote Collaboration (Ellen Osmundson, Ph.D., UC Online)
In this interactive presentation, participants will learn about the history of UC Online, and the strategies and approaches to working with stakeholders at all levels of the system, to build consensus and collaboration.
As the Program Director for the UC Online (formerly Innovative Learning Technology Initiative, ILTI), 2013 - present, a systemwide program operated from UC’s Office of the President, Ellen has 10+ years working with all 10 UC campuses, including students, faculty, senior administrators, staff as well as external audiences. She has organized and hosted three all-campus UC meetings (2013, 2016 and 2021). Osmundson works closely with the systemwide Academic Senate, as well as various Senate committees. Ellen served as a Senior Researcher at UCLA’s Center for Research on Evaluation Standards and Testing (CRESST) for 15 years. There, she focused on professional development projects on statewide implementation of formative assessment systems across the United States, and evaluation of various NSF-supported projects.
May 12, 12:00-1:30 PM
Project Management Techniques for Leaders in Educational Technology (Jennifer Kienzle, SF City College)
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.