Keynote Presentation, October 9, 2014, 9:00-10:00 am
Chris Bustamante, Ed.D.Chris Bustamante, Ed.D., serves as the President of Rio Salado College, the largest of the ten Maricopa Community Colleges located in metropolitan Phoenix, AZ. The College serves more than 65,000 students annually with more than 44,000 students online.
Dr. Bustamante is a well-known advocate for increasing access to higher education and degree completion, and for forging transformational partnerships with business, government, and other educational providers.
Dr. Bustamante was appointed as President of Rio Salado College in June 2010 after serving as the College’s Interim President, Vice President of Community Development and Student Services, and Dean of Academic Affairs. Previously, he served in senior level government affairs positions for the Maricopa County Community College District, as the Assistant to the Superintendent for Community and Government Relations for the Phoenix Union High School District, and as a Legislative Aide in the Arizona House of Representatives.
He serves on many national and state boards including; the American Association of Community Colleges Board of Directors, the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning Board of Trustees, Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) Commissioner for Arizona, and the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) Executive Council. He is also the incoming president of the National Community College Hispanic Council, a member of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA) and Steering Committee member of the WICHE State Authorization Reciprocity Agreement (W-SARA), President’s Forum Board of Directors, and Chair of the Commission on Education Attainment and Innovation. Most recently he has participated in the American Council on Education’s Presidential Innovation Lab.
Aldridge, Ph.D.In learning from the past and looking ahead to the future of online education, we must move the campus discussion beyond technology’s transactional value as a flexible medium for academic delivery, by focusing on its experiential value, as a transformative tool for cultivating the expert knowledge and complex skills needed to move ahead in today’s innovation economy. That will mean cultivating a culture of quality, which empowers us to create, capture, and deliver ever more effective approaches for technology-enhanced learning and teaching. Dr. Susan Aldridge will offer a practical framework for achieving this objective, while also looking at some of the leading-edge technologies we can use to engage students in active, authentic, and customized learning, proven essential for academic and professional success.
Bio for Dr. Susan C. Aldridge
Dr. Aldridge serves as senior vice president for Online Learning at Drexel University and president of Drexel University Online, where she is responsible for building an administrative division that provides comprehensive services for online students, while also pursuing innovative approaches to online curricula, teaching, and student assessment.
A highly accomplished higher education leader and strategist, Dr. Aldridge is recognized worldwide for her innovation and expertise in adult and distance learning. As president of the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), she led efforts to redesign the curriculum; streamline student services; and implement next generation learning technologies. She also expanded enrollments and increased student retention rates, making UMUC the nation’s largest public university and a model for high-quality online education. Prior to that, she spent 10 years as Vice Chancellor for the Global Campus at Troy University in Alabama.
Before joining Drexel University, Dr. Aldridge served as a Senior Fellow at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) where she co-authored a book, Wired for Success. She is also a frequent keynote speaker at national and international conferences and advisor to university presidents, government officials, and business leaders, in the areas of technology-enhanced learning, expanded academic access, sustainable campus growth, and global academic partnerships. Likewise, she has received multiple awards in recognition of her achievements and served on numerous higher education boards and task forces.