Presenter Biographies

Jonathan Brennan (presenting Workshop 8: Motivating Students to Stay on Course) has presented workshops on student success to faculty from colleges and universities across the United States. Since 2000, he has been working as an assistant and co-facilitator with Skip Downing, the creator of the innovative On Course student success workshop series. An English Instructor at Mission College in Santa Clara, CA, he holds an M.A. in English and a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from U.C. Berkeley. He has chaired the Mission College Student Success Committee; served as Vice President of their Academic Senate; and teaches composition, African American and Native American literature, and life skills classes. He directed an academic mentoring program for basic skills students, developed a freshman seminar learning communities project, and directed research grants for the state of California's Fund for Student Success and Fund for Instructional Improvement programs. He was voted Faculty of the Year at Mission College in 1999-2000 and was recently awarded a NISOD Teaching Excellence Award. His publications include studies on mixed race and Black Indian literature from Stanford University Press and from the University of Illinois Press, and he has a forthcoming book on high school student success.

Vicki Casella (co-presenting Workshop 7: The Effective Use of Academic Technology and co-presenting Workshop 10: Dealing with Disruptive and Inappropriate Behavior) is the founding director of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching at San Francisco State University. She joined the faculty at San Francisco State in 1981 and is a professor of Special Education. Prior to her involvement in the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching, she was the Coordinator of the Education of the Deaf program and Co-coordinator of the Joint Doctoral Program in Special Education. Dr. Casella is an internationally known speaker and has published widely in the area of integration of technology into the curriculum, adaptive/assistive technology, and the use of technology to deliver instruction via the Internet. Last year Vicki visited all the CSU campuses to learn about the use of academic technology, and she played an instrumental role in systemwide planning for the future of academic technology.

Cynthia Desrochers (co-presenting Workshop 6: Adaptive Teaching in a Diverse Classroom) is the founding director (1997) of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at CSU Northridge and a professor of education.

Miriam Rosalyn Diamond (presenting Workshop 2: The Ethics of Teaching: Dealing with Sticky Situations) is Associate Director of Northeastern University's Center for Effective University Teaching. She has conducted orientation programs, workshops, and courses for faculty in North America and abroad. Her publications include "How Would You Handle this Situation? Teaching Assistant Responses to an Ethics Workshop," published in the Journal of Graduate Teaching Assistant Development, and "Creating Classroom Lessons On Ethical Inquiry," which is posted on Tomorrow's Professor Listserv. She teaches an undergraduate course fostering ethical awareness at internship sites. Miriam's Ph.D. is in Educational Processes, and she has a master's in Counseling Psychology.

Amy Driscoll (presenting Workshop 4: Collaborative Learning) is Director of Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at CSU Monterey Bay and is a nationally recognized expert on outcomes-based education and innovative pedagogy. She has conducted workshops on collaborative learning for a number of campuses and has a chapter on grouping strategies in her co-authored text Universal Teaching Strategies, 4th edition (2004). Amy has taught courses on teaching and learning at the master's and doctoral level at the University of Utah, Portland State University, and the University of Houston.

John Edlund (co-presenting Workshop 1: Writing Across the Curriculum and Workshop 5: Reading Across the Curriculum) is the founding Director of the University Writing Center at Cal Poly Pomona and a member of the English and Foreign Languages Department. His B.A. and M.A. in English are from Cal State L.A., and his Ph.D. in English is from the University of Southern California. He is the current President of the CSU English Council.

Gerry Hanley (presenting Workshop 3: Supporting Student Learning with the BlackBoard Course Management System and co-presenting the first part of Workshop 11: Information, Technology, and Teaching: Two Half-Day Sessions) is the Senior Director for Academic Technology Support for the CSU Office of the Chancellor and Executive Director for the MERLOT project. He oversees the development and implementation of integrated electronic library and academic technology resources to support the instructional and research programs of all CSU faculty. Previously he held the positions of Professor of Psychology, Director of Faculty Development, and Director of Strategic Planning at the Cal State Long Beach campus. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Ethelynda Harding (co-presenting Workshop 10: Dealing with Disruptive and Inappropriate Behavior) is Director of the Center for Enhancement of Teaching and Learning and Interim Director of Academic Technology at California State University, Fresno. Her twenty-five years as a faculty member and eight years in faculty professional development have made her much more familiar with unfortunate behaviors than she wishes to admit.

Carol Holder (co-presenting Workshop 1: Writing Across the Curriculum and Workshop 5: Reading Across the Curriculum), Professor of English at Cal Poly Pomona, has been "on loan" since July 2002 to Cal State Channel Islands as Interim Director of Faculty Development. She directed Writing in the Disciplines at Pomona from 1980 to 1998, working with more than 500 faculty in that 18-year period. A nationally recognized leader in writing across the curriculum initiatives, she has made presentations on assigning and evaluating writing in various disciplines at more than 50 colleges and universities. She is co-author, with Andrew Moss, of Improving Student Writing: A Guidebook for Faculty in All Disciplines, now in its ninth printing.

Kevin Kelly (co-presenting Workshop 7: The Effective Use of Academic Technology), wears many hats as Assistant Director of the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching at San Francisco State University. His responsibilities include facilitating faculty and staff training in both Enhancing Teaching & Learning and Integrating Technology into Teaching; coordinating multimedia production for on-campus and grant-related projects; interfacing with many campus organizations to promote the effective use of academic technology; and much, much more! Kevin also lectures for the Department of Instructional Technology in the College of Education. He is currently teaching a practicum course called Needs Assessment, in which the students work with real-life clients.

Kathleen Margaret Lant ("Peggy") (presenting the second part of Workshop 11: Information, Technology, and Teaching: Two Half-Day Sessions) is an English Professor at Cal State Hayward, where she also has served as Director of Teaching and Technology and Extension Director of Online Programs. She instructs faculty in the use of educational technology, and she teaches in both the English and the Instructional Technology programs. She directed the development of the online Master's program in Online Teaching and Learning, the online Certificate in Technical and Professional Communication, and several other online courses and programs. Her publications include work on Louisa May Alcott, Sylvia Plath, Tennessee Williams, Stephen King, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, and instructional technology. Her edited collection on Stephen King -- Imagining the Worst: The Representation of Women in the Works of Stephen King -- was published in 1998. She currently is working on a book on traditional values and new technologies in teaching at the college level.

Rebecca Litke (presenting Workshop 9: Speaking Across the Curriculum) is Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Northridge where she served as the director for the basic course in oral communication. Dr. Litke has presented numerous workshops and presentations on teacher training, assessment, large class instruction, classroom climate, and management. She has taught oral communication to honors students, ESL/international students, and youth, and has prepared instructional materials and manuals to assist others in the teaching of oral communication skills to diverse audiences. Rebecca was awarded the Advancement of Teaching Effectiveness Award in 1993 and 1999 for her curricular improvements at CSUN. She is active in teacher training, assessment, and service learning pedagogy.

Merril Simon, co-presenting Workshop 6: Adaptive Teaching in a Diverse Classroom) is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology and Counseling at CSU Northridge.

Kathleen Wilbanks (co-presenting the first part of Workshop 11: Information, Technology, and Teaching: Two Half-Day Sessions) is the Operations/Marketing Manager of the CSU Center for Distributed Learning (CDL) and served on the Administrative Team of MERLOT (www.merlot.org). With a degree in management, Kathleen is currently pursuing a master's degree in education and technology. Before joining the CDL, Kathleen was a director of marketing and an assistant controller in private industry. She has been involved with the North Bay Multimedia Association, the Sonoma County School-to-Career Partnership, and the Business Education Roundtable, and she was chair of the local Chamber of Commerce.