We believe
Higher education Should prioritize the Wellbeing of All Students
We believe
Higher education Should prioritize the Wellbeing of All Students
Executive Committee
KEITH BUFFINTON
Executive Director
Keith W. Buffinton is the inaugural Executive Director of the Coalition for Transformational Education. Prior to his current role, Dr. Buffinton served on the faculty of Bucknell University from 1987 through 2023 and is now Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Dean Emeritus of Engineering.
RICHARD K. MILLER
Founding Chair
Richard K. Miller (F.AAA&S, FREng, M.NAE, F.NAI) is the Founding Chair of the Coalition for Transformational Education. Dr. Miller served as Founding President of Olin College of Engineering until 2020, and previously served as Dean of Engineering at the University of Iowa and Associate Dean at USC in Los Angeles. He served as Chair of the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the NASEM, and Chair of the Engineering Advisory Committee of the NSF, among many other advisory roles.
MARJORIE MALPIEDE
Editor in Chief, LearningWell magazine
Marjorie Malpiede is the Editor in Chief of LearningWell magazine. She is the former executive director of the Mary Christie Institute and former editor of the Mary Christie Quarterly. As a journalist and strategist, she has over 30 years of leadership experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors working with public agencies, campaigns, private companies and non-profit organizations on policy, communications, and government relations. She received her MPA from the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston and her BS from Drew University.
JOHN VOLIN
Provost, The University of Maine
John Volin is Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at the University of Maine. Prior to joining the UMaine community in August 2020, he served as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Volin was a Professor of Natural Resources and the Environment at UConn. He served a decade as department head and conducted research in ecosystems around the world, focusing on invasive species and restoration ecology.
DANA HUMPHREY
Associate Director
Dana Humphrey is the Associate Director of the Coalition for Transformational Education and the Managing Editor for LearningWell magazine. She was previously Associate Director at the Mary Christie Institute and has worked on various public health research projects at Northeastern University’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences, John Snow Inc, and Boston Medical Center. She received her MPH from Boston University School of Public Health and her BA in Sociology from The Colorado College.
Steering Committee
ASHLEY FINLEY
Dr. Ashley Finley is the Vice President of Research and Senior Advisor to the President for the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). She was previously the senior director of assessment and research at AAC&U and also national evaluator for the Bringing Theory to Practice Project. Most recently she served as the associate vice president for academic affairs & founding dean of the Dominican Experience at Dominican University of California, where she implemented a comprehensive framework for student learning and success centered around high-impact practices, including holistic advising and ePortfolios.
LARRY GALIZIO
Larry Galizio has served as the President & CEO of the Community College League of California since 2015. Dr. Galizio earned his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, a Masters from San Francisco State, and his doctorate from the School of Urban & Public Affairs at Portland State University. Prior to becoming League CEO, Dr. Galizio served 5 years as President of Clatsop Community College in Astoria, Oregon. Before that, Dr. Galizio was the Director for Strategic Planning in the Chancellor’s Office for the Oregon University System, as well as Director of Speech & Debate and Full-Time faculty member at Portland Community College for 16 years. Dr. Galizio is co-author of the textbook: Elements of Parliamentary Debate: A Guide to Public Argument, and of the first comprehensive and contemporary history of California Community Colleges: A College for All Californians: A History of the California Community Colleges. In 2004, Dr. Galizio was elected to the Oregon Legislative Assembly where he served 3 terms – including stints as Chair of the Ways & Means Education Committee responsible for all of the public education budgets in the State.
MICHELE GILLESPIE
Michele Gillespie began serving as Provost on July 1, 2022. In her first year, she led the academic Strategic Framework process, hired three new deans, and re-organized the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Prior to serving as Provost, Gillespie was Dean of the College. She led the first comprehensive core curriculum review in two decades, launched a five-year college-wide Diversity Action Plan, co-chaired the President’s First Year Experience Commission, and implemented significant new academic programming, including the Wake Washington Program and Wake Downtown, and the Environment and Sustainability, African American Studies, Engineering, and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology majors. Gillespie joined the Wake Forest Faculty in 1999, was named Kahle Associate Professor in 2004, Associate Provost in 2007, and Presidential Endowed Chair of Southern History in 2013, before assuming the deanship in 2015. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in History from Princeton University and her B.A. in English and History from Rice University. She is an award-winning teacher, and her publications include two prize-winning books: Free Labor in an Unfree World: White Artisans in Slaveholding Georgia, 1789-1860 (2000) and Katharine and R.J. Reynolds: Partners of Fortune in the Making of the New South (2012).
NANCY GONZALES
Nancy Gonzales is the executive vice president and university provost of Arizona State University. In this role, she serves as ASU’s chief academic officer for the Academic Enterprise, advancing all educational programs and degrees for ASU’s diverse student population and the world class faculty needed to train the next generation workforce and leaders of our state, nation, and globe. The Academic Enterprise encompasses undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs offered by 16 interdisciplinary colleges that together serve over 150,000 students in multiple realms of immersive, remote, and digital learning.
ARCHIE HOLMES
Archie Holmes, Jr. is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Holmes also serves as the Executive Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs for The University of Texas System.
TOM KATSOULEAS
A leading plasma scientist and engineer with deep academic roots in teaching and research, became UConn president in 2019. He has a special interest in ensuring the quality of the student experience through diversity, respect and responsibility, and recruiting highly talented and representative faculty.
ZOE RAGOUZEOS
Zoe Ragouzeos, Ph.D., LCSW is the Vice President for Student Mental Health and Wellbeing at New York University. Dr. Ragouzeos serves as the principal student mental health and wellbeing officer at NYU and is charged with galvanizing and directing both the clinical and wellbeing (prevention) initiatives across the university, forging a vibrant campus-wide culture of wellbeing and flourishing and concretizing wellbeing and flourishing as one of the University’s core values.
Dr. Ragouzeos is a clinical social worker licensed in New York State and received her Ph.D. in Social Work from New York University. She has facilitated national and international conversations with varied stakeholders on campus-wide holistic wellbeing, the state of college student mental health and the faculty role in student wellbeing.
CLAYTON SPENCER
Clayton Spencer served as the eighth president of Bates College from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2023. Clayton Spencer served as the eighth president of Bates College from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2023. Under Spencer’s leadership, the college made significant advances in its academic program, the student experience, and fundraising, creating a program in Digital and Computational Studies, building a transformative science center, and launching major curricular transformation and inclusive pedagogy initiatives in STEM, the humanities, and the social sciences. Over this period, Bates tripled its annual giving, more than doubled its endowment, and completed the largest fundraising campaign in the college’s history. Spencer also spearheaded the creation of Bates’ nationally recognized Purposeful Work program, which mobilizes the core strengths of the liberal arts to prepare students to navigate the evolving worlds of work. Prior to Bates, Spencer spent 15 years at Harvard, from 1998 to 2012 reporting directly to the President and serving as a member of the university’s senior leadership team, her last seven years as Vice President for Policy. From 1993 to 1997, Spencer worked for the late U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy as Chief Education Counsel, directing the higher education legislative agenda in the Senate. Clayton currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Coalition for Transformational Education, and on the Boards of the Davis Educational Foundation and the Portland Museum of Art. She was previously a member of the Boards of Williams College, Phillips Exeter Academy, the American Council on Education, and other national higher education organizations. Earlier in her career, Clayton practiced law in Boston at Ropes & Gray and as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, a B.A. from Williams College, and masters degrees from Oxford and Harvard.
Staff
ELLA SCHMIDT
Communications Coordinator
Ella Schmidt is a reporter and editorial assistant for LearningWell magazine. She graduated with honors in English from Bowdoin College, where she was awarded the Academy of American Poets Colette Inez Poetry Prize in 2019, the Martha Reed Coles Fellowship in the Humanities in 2021, and the Nellie C. Watterson Fellowship in the Creative & Performing Arts in 2022. Prior to joining LearningWell, Ella worked as an intern at her local NPR station, St. Louis Public Radio.
ANNA MILROD
Administrative and Logistics Coordinator
Anna Milrod serves as the Coalition’s Administrative and Logistics Coordinator. In this role, Anna manages calendars for the Executive Director and Associate Director; assists with correspondence, organization, editing, and strategizing for the organization at large; and plans logistics and helps run Coalition-related events. Anna has more than eight years of experience working in the non-profit space as an executive assistant and project and events coordinator. She studied business and Jewish Studies at Emory University and nutrition through The Health Sciences Academy. Throughout her higher-education experience, Anna studied abroad in more than 15 countries.
