Office Hours with John Gardner

I'm newly retired and in the process of sorting through 40 years of books and papers! My professional life has been shaped by a variety of experiences, including my childhood in South Dakota, my experiences at rural and tribal colleges and universities, travels to Latin America and the South Pacific, nonprofit agency and board leadership, teaching undergrad and graduate students, and advocati...

Ron Cole, Ph. D., is the 23rd president of Allegheny College.  As president, he leads the senior leadership team of the College to drive holistic student success and an interdisciplinary, 21st century education.  Under his direction, the College has implemented a bold Strategic Pathway that emphasizes five primary goals focused on academic excellence, broadened academic offerings with an emphasis...

Michael Benitez, Ph. D. is a nationally acclaimed educator in the field of diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education, often called upon by colleges and universities, community organizations and corporations nationwide for his deep knowledge and practice of innovate equity and inclusion-based strategies and approaches to address some of higher education’s most pressing diversity, equity,...

Dr. Kate Lehman serves as Director of the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition (NRC) where she provides leadership for all center operations, strategic initiatives, conferences and events, publications, and scholarly and research activities. The NRC is the trusted expert, internationally-recognized leader, and clearinghouse for scholarship, policy, and...

Tom Ranzweiler is an Edward R. Murrow award-winning and Emmy-nominated senior producer for NBC News. He currently oversees a two hour block of primetime programming for the networks pioneering free 24-hour streaming platform NBC News Now. He previously worked as a producer for NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, and Al Jazeera America. Ranzweiler graduated from Monmouth University in his home state of New Je...

Bryan Dewsbury, Ph. D is a Gardner Institute Fellow and an Associate Professor Biological Sciences Florida International University. He serves as a Teaching and Learning Fellow at the Gardner Institute. Bryan Dewsbury is the principal investigator of the Science Education and Society research program, which focuses on the social context of teaching and learning in a variety of education contexts....

Dr. Nido Qubein serves as the president of High Point University where, even in the middle of the Great Recession, he increased enrollment by 261%, grew net assets from $56M to almost a billion dollars, created 10 new academic schools – most recently adding the Workman School of Dental Medicine, and attracted $500 million in philanthropic investments. His family is among the institution’s most gen...

Akilah A. Martin serves as an Assistant Vice President for the Gardner Institute. In this role, Dr. Martin serves as one of the leads for the Institutional Transformation Assessment project. Akilah A. Martin, Ed. D., began her higher education career pathway as a TRiO advisor with Lone Star College, and she continued in higher education, holding positions in admissions, student activities, and adv...

As Special Assistant to the President at Elon University, Mr. Whittington provides strategic leadership for the President on projects and initiatives assigned by the President in all areas of the campus. Formerly, Gerald Whittington was the Senior Vice President for Business, Finance and Technology at Elon University serving from January 1992 to June 1, 2019. He also served as the Corporate Treasu...

Oscar R. Miranda Tapia is a Research Associate at the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research and a Policy Intern at North Carolina Independent Colleges & Universities. He is also a PhD student and Provost Fellow at NC State University, pursuing a degree in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development, with a focus on higher education opportunity, equity, and justice...

Sarah Bunnell is the Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning at Elon University and Past-President of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), Bunnell is an internationally recognized leader in the scholarship of teaching and learning and faculty development. During her tenure at Amherst College, Bunnell partnered with Dr. Sheila...

Dr. Kimberly Koledoye is a professor of academic student success and serves as the program coordinator for the Houston Community College system. Additionally she teaches developmental and credit level English. She has made tremendous impact on the institution and statewide as a leader of development teams for First Year Experience courses and Developmental English redesigns. She possesses a Bachel...

Meghan Gilbert is an Associate Professor of English and the Faculty Coordinator of the First Year Experience (FYE) at Guttman Community College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY). Dr. Gilbert holds a Ph. D. in English from St. John’s University. She has led and participated in several series on Implicit Bias Racial Literacy and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, as well as many additiona...

Dr. Robert (Bob) Smith is the University of Tennessee System’s Senior Advisor for Executive Leadership and Talent Development.  In 2023, he took leave to serve as the Interim Executive Director for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, the state’s agency for coordination and state-wide policy guidance to all public institutions of higher education in Tennessee. Responsibilities included execu...

Leonard Cassuto wears many hats.  He's a professor of American literature at Fordham University, a well-known voice of reform in the graduate school world, and--encompassing all of these--he's a writer.  He has written or edited ten books on subjects such as race and slavery, detective stories, and of course graduate education. As a scholar and journalist, Len has written about science,...

John W. Lawless has many years of experience as a manager and CEO of business and non-profit organizations. His career began in the information systems division of McDonnell Douglas and includes the founding of HBOC, a nationwide healthcare information systems company. John Lawless was also involved in the establishment of several start-up companies and mergers, most notably the merger of Inforum...

A Maine native, Wendy Ault is a graduate of Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. She has worked as a reproductive health teacher and the Assistant Director of Admissions at Westbrook College (now the University of New England) in Portland, Maine. Wendy Ault served as University of Maine at Farmington’s Associate Director of Admissions for seventeen years. For eight years of her time at UMF, she ran a...

Dr. James “Jim” Reardon is a retired psychiatrist who resides with his wife in New Zealand. He came to the attention of this podcast by being the first supervisor of podcast host, John Gardner, when both Gardner and Reardon were THE “Psychiatric Clinic” at Shaw Air Force Base, Sumter, South Carolina during the Vietnam War. Dr. Reardon was the Base psychiatrist and Gardner was his only psychiatric...

Will Bryant is a native of Western North Carolina and was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 2021. Will holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Divinity degree from Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. With over 12 years of experience working in and among Episcopal congregations, Will is passionate abou...

Will Bryant is a native of Western North Carolina and was ordained in the Episcopal Church in 2021.  Will holds a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Divinity degree from Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California.  With over 12 years of experience working in and among Episcopal congregations, Will is passionate ab...

Amy Goodburn is Senior Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Undergraduate Education and Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) where she leads units in advising and career development, teaching and learning, and student retention and transition. Passionate about UNL’s land-grant mission to support access and equity, in 2017 she created First Generation Nebraska, a campus...

Dr. Stephen C. Ehrmann has dedicated over fifty years to supporting innovation in higher education through his roles as a researcher, grant-maker, consultant, and academic leader. He is currently exploring how institutions can simultaneously enhance the authenticity of learning, equity of access to degrees, and affordability. Throughout his career, Dr. Ehrmann has worked hundreds of institutions i...

Meet JD Gardner, the grandson of founder Dr. John Gardner. JD is from Lexington, South Carolina and graduated in 2023 from Heathwood Hall, a prestigious private school in Columbia, South Carolina. In his time as a Heathwood Hall student, he earned a 3.9 GPA, was a 3-year honor roll student, as well as voted into school office as the executive council secretary. JD has devoted his life to athletics...

Claire Howell Major is Professor of Higher Education and Director of the Teaching Academy at the University of Alabama. Her research centers on faculty work, pedagogical approaches, technology for teaching, and online learning. Major has authored and co-authored several books, including five with Elizabeth Barkley. Their newest work is titled Engaged Teaching: A Handbook for College Faculty . They...

Dr. Eileen Strempel currently serves as the Inaugural Dean of UCLA’s Herb Alpert School of Music and is also a Professor in UCLA’s School of Education & Information Studies. Strempel is recognized as one of “The Top Ten Deans in U.S. Colleges and Universities,” and has served as PI or co-PI on ~$11M in extramural funding from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Labor, the Depart...