Paul Mabrey is Director of Student Success Analytics and Associate Professor in Communication Studies at James Madison University. His work bridges holistic student success, data analytics, communication education, and civic engagement to improve the transformative impacts of higher education. At JMU, he leads the Early Student Success Quality Enhancement Plan and campus-wide student success & retention efforts, collaborating on campus-wide initiatives that integrate academic, well-being, basic needs, and co-curricular data to close success gaps and improve outcomes.

A scholar of debate pedagogy and democratic engagement, Paul has collaborated and published on how debate-based pedagogy can improve student learning, student success, and contribute to the civic mission of higher education. He has received grants and led projects supporting debate across the curriculum, data-informed student success, civic learning, and the integration of high-impact practices. Paul regularly presents nationally on student success, analytics, engaged pedagogy, and institutional transformation.

Dr. Michael “Mike” Davis began his tenure as the 27th President of Fairmont State University in July of 2023 and immediately committed himself to positioning Fairmont State as the best regional university in West Virginia.

Using the insights he gathered from listening to countless constituents ranging from students to faculty and staff, community members, business partners, international partners, and state legislators, he guided the creation of a robust Strategic Vision. This vision — for the University to become a Great Place to Learn, to Work, and to Call Home — will guide Fairmont State throughout the next decade as it seeks to educate engaged citizens in a community distinguished by opportunity, growth, and achievement, and delivers transformational impact for West Virginia and beyond.

Dr. G. Duncan Harris has had an illustrious 30-year career in higher education, most recently serving as the CEO of the Capital Campus of Connecticut State Community College (formerly Capital Community College) in Hartford, CT, from 2018 to 2025 where he was responsible for the strategic direction and daily operations of the campus. The Capital campus hosts CT State’s largest nursing program, a number of innovative higher education partnerships with companies like Accenture, Travelers, and Pursuit Aerospace, and is known for its success in providing access to careers that disrupt cycles of poverty and equity gaps for its students, 70% of whom are Black and Hispanic. Dr. Harris is recognized as an expert in student success and retention, community college collaboration with non-profit and corporate entities, and takes pride in his role as a mentor/coach to many community college professionals. Prior to his tenure at CT State Capital, he served in a number of roles including – chief academic officer, chief student affairs officer, counselor, coordinator of advising and was the founding executive director of the CSCU Kresge Student Success Center. Prior to his work in higher education, he had a career in banking and finance.

He has served on a number of boards during his tenure including the New England Board of Higher Education, the American Association of Community Colleges Economic Development and Workforce Commission, the National Council on Black American Affairs, Windsor Federal Bank, and the Wadsworth Athenaeum. He has received many awards for his contributions to the community, including the CT African American Affairs Man of the Year and the NAACP 100 Most Influential Blacks in CT Award.

He holds a Doctorate of Education from Nova Southeastern University, a Master of Science degree in counseling from Central CT State University, a Bachelor of Arts in economics from UConn, and a certificate in Management and Leadership from Harvard University. He is an proud, active, lifetime member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. He resides in Windsor with his lovely wife of 24 years, Garcia, and two children, Grant, a junior, and Grayson, a freshman, both attending Hampton University.

Dr. Phil Cavalier was named the 13th president of Kutztown in Pennsylvania on April 30, 2025 and will begin his tenure on July 7th. For the previous seven years, he served as the provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He also served as Interim Chancellor at the University of Tennessee at Martin from March to August 2023.

Some of Dr. Cavalier’s accomplishments during his tenure at UT Martin include leading the university in creating a strategic plan for 2025-30, developing a two five-year strategic enrollment plan, guiding the university to a record-high 77% retention rate for first-year students, adding several new academic programs, and building a UTM in Siena, Italy study abroad program.

Prior to his appointment at UT Martin, Dr. Cavalier served as the provost at two residential liberal arts colleges, Lyon College in Arkansas and Eureka College in Illinois. During the 2005-6 academic year, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Kyiv, Ukraine, where he taught American literature at two Ukrainian universities and delivered lectures throughout Ukraine as well as in Estonia and Egypt. He earned a Ph.D. in English from the University at Buffalo, an M.A. in English from Northeastern University, and a B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College.

Maria Dykema Erb, M.Ed. is the Inaugural Executive Director of the Boston University Newbury Center which was established to foster the holistic development and success of first-generation undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. Maria has over three decades of higher education experience having worked at the University of Vermont, Elon University, Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and currently at Boston University. She has worked in a broad range of areas including Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging; student recruitment/admissions, enrollment management, academic advising, retention, and outreach; academic dean’s office and graduate/professional school program administration; and student affairs/life.

As a proud first-generation college graduate, Maria holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of New Hampshire and Master of Education degree from The University of Vermont (UVM).

As a higher education and student affairs practitioner, Maria has shared her scholarship through numerous presentations and book chapters. Most recently, she has chapters in: Know That You Are Worthy: Experiences from First-Generation College Graduates; A Handbook for Supporting Today’s Graduate Students; A Practitioner’s Guide to Supporting Graduate and Professional Students; and Fostering First Gen Success and Inclusion: A Guide for Law Schools (in press).

Anthony Abraham Jack, Ph.D. is the Inaugural Faculty Director of the Boston University Newbury Center and Associate Professor of Higher Education Leadership at Boston University.

His scholarship appears in the Common Reader, Du Bois Review, Social Problems, Sociological Forum, and the Sociology of Education and has earned awards from the American Sociological Association, American Educational Studies Association, Association for the Study of Higher Education, Eastern Sociological Society, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Tony held fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the National Science Foundation and was a 2015 National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow. In 2016, The National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan named him an Emerging Diversity Scholar. In May 2020, Muhlenberg College awarded him an honorary doctorate for his work in transforming higher education.

The New York Times, Teen Vogue, Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Huffington Post, The Nation, American Conservative Magazine, The National Review, Commentary Magazine, The Washington Post, Financial Times, Times Higher Education, Vice, Vox, and NPR have featured his research and writing as well as biographical profiles of his experiences as a first-generation college student. The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students (2019) was awarded the 2020 Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, the 2019 CEP Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship, and the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize and was also named a finalist for the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award and a NPR Book’s Best Book of 2019. It is available in English and Chinese. His second book, Class Dismissed: When College Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price (2024), received a Starred Review from Kirkus Reviews, was named a finalist for the 2024 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award for Education from Foreword Reviews, and earned the 2025 PROSE Award for Education Theory and Practice by the Association of American Publishers.

Ian F. McNeely is professor of history and senior associate dean for undergraduate education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A specialist in German history and the history of knowledge, he is the author of three books, including The University Unfettered: Public Higher Education in an Age of Disruption (2025).

Dr. Dan Volchok is currently the Assistant Dean of Student Success at Harvard University’s Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. In this role he supports nearly 5,000 Master’s and PhD students studying in 57 graduate programs across the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering. Dr. Volchok is responsible for most non-academic support services including student conduct, policy development and review, major events such as orientation, convocation and commencement, emergency management and collaboration with university services including disability services, general counsel, health services, registrar, campus police and international students.

Prior to Harvard, Dr. Volchok was Associate Dean of the Tufts University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences where he was responsible for all student, faculty and academic affairs within the school. In addition to supervising admissions, registrar and program services, he managed student affairs, advised the students government and helped develop new academic programs. He was previously Assistant Dean for Graduate Student Life at Northeastern University and Director of Graduate Program and Student Services at Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business.

Dr. Volchok is also currently adjunct faculty in the Northeastern College of Professional Studies Graduate School of Education where he teaches a variety of courses in the Master’s program, including Higher Education Law and Policy, as well as acting as Dissertation Chair for doctoral students in the EdD program.

Dr. Volchok continues to advocate for graduate and professional students through his professional positions and work with the NASPA Administrators in Graduate and Professional Student Services Knowledge Community.

Dr. Volchok earned a Bachelors in Business Administration and MBA from Ohio University and an EdD from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Teresa R. Rivenes is currently the Senior Vice President for the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, also known as the NWCCU, which is a previously regional and now international accreditation agency. Before this role, Dr. Rivenes served as the Vice President at Umpqua Community College and as the Vice President of Academic and Student Services at Tillamook Bay Community College, both located in Oregon. At both institutions, she focused on systemic change, transforming struggling assessment processes into shining examples of assessment and accreditation success. She also led the first faculty teams in Oregon to eliminate developmental education classes and implement guided self-placement for all students. Prior to this, Dr. Rivenes was the Dean of Instruction at Rogue Community College, where she became the first administrator nominated by faculty for The League for Innovation Excellence Award for outstanding leadership in cross-campus first-year experience initiatives.

Prior work included serving as the Director of Academic Success for Great Falls College—Montana State University, the Campus Center Director and Faculty for Park University, and the Academic Director and Faculty for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Dr. Rivenes has also served as the co-chair of the statewide Transfer Council, which is developing Common Course Numbering and Transfer Degree Maps across all state institutions in Oregon.

Dr. Rivenes is a proud community college graduate and first-generation student. She earned her Master’s and PhD in Psychology, focusing her research on the impact of self-esteem on cross-cultural adoption, with a focus on Native American self-esteem and cultural identification. She then went on to earn her EdD from Montana State University, where she earned the Land Grant Student of the Year award and the Distinguished Scholar Award for her research in community college governance and unfunded mandates.

Dr. Rivenes has continued to teach psychology and sociology classes because she is passionate about student success and loves being in the classroom. She is also passionate about relationship-based management, strategic planning for long-term success, innovative educational solutions, and building community partnerships that support student success and economic mobility. Since 2013, she has served as an NWCCU peer accreditor. Dr. Rivenes is a proud completer of the Oregon Institute for Leadership Development, the Future President’s Institute through the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), a 2020-2021 NWCCU Assessment fellow, a 2023-2024 Gardner Institute Chief Academic Officers Innovation Community member, and a lifelong American Association of University Women (AAUW) member.

Dr. Nariman Farvardin, Stevens Institute of Technology's seventh president since 2011, has transformed the university into a nationally prominent technological research powerhouse. Under his leadership, undergraduate applications surged 294%, enrollment rose 62% and career outcomes reached an impressive 96.8% of graduates employed or in graduate school within six months. Farvardin's tenure has driven a 199% increase in research funding and $500 million in campus improvements, including the landmark University Center Complex. His innovative academic initiatives and creation of new research centers have positioned Stevens at the forefront of technology education, preparing graduates to excel in an increasingly complex, technology-centric world. Access his full bio at //stevens.edu/president.

Contact: president@stevens.edu