Steering Committee

Executive Committee

Keith Buffinton - Executive Director

Professor of Mechanical Engineering, emeritus, and former Dean of Engineering at Bucknell University

Keith Buffinton is the inaugural Executive Director of the Coalition for Transformational Education, an organization focused on promoting lifelong student wellbeing.

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Prior to his current role, he served on the faculty of Bucknell University, where he is now Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Dean of Engineering, emeritus. At Bucknell, he also served as co-director of Bucknell’s Institute for Leadership in Technology and Management as well as Special Assistant to the Provost for Engineering Collaborations. During sabbaticals from Bucknell, he has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Rochester, Stanford University, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Olin College of Engineering, and the University of Stuttgart. Buffinton has received various awards for his teaching and leadership, including Bucknell’s Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, the “Star Performers Award for Innovation” from the Small Business Development Center of Pennsylvania, the award for “Outstanding Achievement in Mechanical Engineering” from the Tufts Department of Mechanical Engineering, the inaugural Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network Dean’s Award, the Charles H. Coder Entrepreneurial Leadership Award, and the Burma-Bucknell Bowl Award for “outstanding contributions to intercultural and international understanding.” Buffinton is a former member of the Executive Board of the ASEE Engineering Deans Council and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Smull College of Engineering at Ohio Northern University, the Advisory Board for the Tufts Center for Engineering Education Outreach, the Interim Executive Committee for the Grand Challenges Scholars Program Network, and as a Senior Advisor to the Editorial Board of LearningWell magazine. He received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering summa cum laude from Tufts University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford.

Richard K. Miller - Founding Chair

President Emeritus of Olin College of Engineering

President Emeritus (and first employee) at the Olin College of Engineering. Member of the Advisory Committee for the Lemelson Foundation, the Advisory Council for the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream, the Board of Trustees at the Asian University for Women, and Research Affiliate at MIT.

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Previously, he served as Dean of Engineering at the University of Iowa, Associate Dean of Engineering at USC in Los Angeles, and assistant professor of engineering at UCSB in Santa Barbara. Miller is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has served as Chair of the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and as Chair of the Engineering Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation. Miller earned his B.S at the University of California, Davis, his S.M. from MIT, and Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, where he received the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award in 2014.

Marjorie Malpiede

Executive Director of the Mary Christie Institute

Marjorie Malpiede is Executive Director of the Mary Christie Institute, Editor in Chief of LearningWell Magazine. As a journalist and strategist, Ms. Malpiede has over thirty years of leadership experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors.

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She has advised public agencies, campaigns, private companies and non-profit organizations on policy, communications, and government relations.

John Volin

Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost at University of Maine

John Volin is Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. Prior to joining the UMaine community in August 2020, he served as Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at the University of Connecticut.

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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. He had been awarded more than $29 million in extramural funding for both research and foundational activities. Dr. Volin also directed UConn’s Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences Program and co-founded the Eversource Energy Center. The award-winning Natural Resources Conservation Academy he established focused on conservation and land use planning education for high school students. In 2017, Dr. Volin was named Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. His numerous awards include a 2017 Excellence in Research Award from the UConn College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, and a 2019 UConn Environmental Leadership Award. Prior to joining UConn, Dr. Volin was Professor and Chair of Biological Sciences, and Director of the Environmental Sciences Program at Florida Atlantic University. He received a Ph.D. in forestry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also did a postdoctoral fellowship.

Steering Committee Members

Ashley Finley

Vice President of Research for the AAC&U

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).

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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.

Michele Gillespie

Provost Wake Forest University.

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.

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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

Executive vice president and university provost of Arizona State University.

Nancy Gonzales is the executive vice president and university provost of Arizona State University.

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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, Jr.

Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs of The University of Texas System

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.

Thomas Katsouleas

Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and former President of the University of Connecticut

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.

Clayton Spencer

President of Bates College

Clayton Spencer served as the eighth president of Bates College from July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2023.

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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.