Like you, Kevin Martin believes that education matters and transforms lives. As a first-generation and international college student from Canada, Kevin pursued B.A. from Calvin College and went on to earn an M.B.A. from Michigan State University. As a father of three, and volunteer youth athletics coach, Kevin is eager for opportunities great and small to make a positive impact on the lives of learners young and old. As General Manager of Higher Education and member of the Executive Team at Parchment, Kevin pursues Parchment’s mission to help turn credentials into opportunities. With direct responsibility for Parchment’s Higher Education portfolio, Kevin works with talented team members to achieve Parchment’s goals of new member acquisition, implementation, account management, business development, and providing leadership to the Parchment Advisory Board.
Outside of his leadership at Parchment, Kevin is a member of the Advisory Board for the Credentials As You Go initiative.
Bhavesh is the University Registrar at Temple University and has served in his role since 2013. Bhavesh's office supports students (current and former), faculty, and staff across 17 schools and colleges at the University, including Temple University Japan and Rome. He has participated in initiatives to forward learner records, including AACRAO's Guidance on the Review of the Comprehensive Learner Records (CLR) Standard, and The Veterans Compliance Reporting Re-Engineering Project. He was also an adjunct professor at Mercer County Community College, teaching international business. Bhavesh holds a Bachelor of Science and an MBA from the University of New Haven, and an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Rowan University.
Insiya Bream, Registrar & Associate Vice President at University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), has 15 years of experience as a higher education administrator. She has experience working in Enrollment Management, Admissions and most recently experience working with Registration and Records. Insiya has a passion for working with adult students and finding innovative ways to improve the student and administrator experience by analyzing business processes and exploring technology solutions. Insiya has championed the creation of a Comprehensive Learner Record at UMGC and is passionate about crafting education for students that meets them where they are in their educational journey’s.
Chelsea Gregoire is the human behind Drinkable Genius, a cocktail and hospitality consultancy founded in 2015, that focuses on crafting innovative cocktails, supporting business owners in the hospitality industry in building new restaurant and beverage programs, managing profitability and service standards, or streamlining existing processes to maximize their efforts. They are a Baltimore native with a Bachelor of Science in Religion and a Master of Arts in Theological Studies. Chelsea is passionate about education in the hospitality industry, and has taught at international and national hospitality gatherings. They have received many accolades for their work, including being named America's Beverage Director of the Year (2019) by Esquire, an Eater Young Gun (2018), Best Bartender by multiple local publications, and having original cocktails featured in publications like Bon Appetit and Whisky Advocate.Chelsea was most recently profiled by Baltimore Magazine (2021).
Patty was born and raised in North Dakota. She received a full-athletic scholarship to attend Stanford, graduating in 1989 with a BA in Psychology. Patty was a 9-time NCAA All-American (Shot Put and Discus) and competed at the 1988 Olympic Trials. In 1995, she founded TimeOut Services, Inc.. Patty and her team were instrumental in designing the original wellness programs for Google, Cisco, Yahoo!, Safeway and KLA-Tencor. In 2009, Patty sold the corporate wellness division, and trademarked Community BootCamp© program, to Plus One of New York (now part of Optum). Patty's awards include: The Key to the City of Grand Forks, North Dakota, Business Journal Top Women in Business, and Top 50 Influential Women of Silicon Valley. Today, Patty supports the wellness initiatives across the Stanford Enterprise, which includes: Stanford University, Stanford Health Care, Stanford Children’s Health and Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC).
Gabe has 30+ years in higher education on campuses ranging from community colleges to top-tier research universities with more than 15 years as a registrar, 10 years in admissions, and 10 years in student systems. He brings vast organizational, operational, policy, and system experience for student life-cycle management including records, advising, curriculum, graduate education, financial services, admissions, and systems. He has exceptional ability to understand campus culture, align resources, optimize organizational design/operations, and leverage systems for improved service, outcomes, and efficiency. Gabe is a consensus builder, change agent, and thought leader.
With a relaxing and inventive compositional, acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Yasmin Williams specializes in lap tapping, a technique that involves playing the guitar with both hands over the fretboard as it rests face-up on the player's lap. Incorporating tapped harmonics, bowing, percussive strikes, alternative tunings, and even tap shoes into her sound, she landed on the Billboard Heatseekers chart with her debut album, 2018's Unwind.
Her newly released sophomore album, Urban Driftwood, has gotten high praise from outlets like Rolling Stone, NPR, Pitchfork, and the Washington Post.
Congressman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott has represented Virginia’s third congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993. Prior to his service in Congress, he served 15 years in the Virginia General Assembly.
Congressman Scott currently serves as the Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor. In this capacity, he is advancing an agenda that improves equity in education, frees students from the burdens of crippling debt, protects and expands access to affordable health care, ensures workers have a safe workplace where they can earn a living wage free from discrimination, and guarantees seniors have a secure and dignified retirement. In 2015, he was one of the four primary authors of the Every Student Succeeds Act, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act for the first time in 13 years and replaced the No Child Left Behind Act.
Congressman Scott also serves on Committee on the Budget where he is a leading voice on fiscal policy and reducing the deficit. As a former member of the Committee on the Judiciary, he is a leading advocate for reforming our nation’s broken criminal justice system. He has successfully worked to pass bipartisan legislation to reduce mandatory minimum sentences, reform the juvenile justice system, and require reporting and federal data collection of deaths that occur in police custody, jails, and prisons.
Congressman Scott resides in Newport News, Virginia. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Boston College Law School. He also served in the Massachusetts National Guard and the United States Army Reserve.
Joyce R. Phillip, MA, SPHR, SHRM-SCP, brings more than 25 years HR experience in the healthcare industry to her role as president of her own training/consulting/coaching firm. She is a strategic, results oriented human resources professional, coach, trainer and consultant. Recognized as a catalyst for innovative initiatives in both acute care and practice management settings, Joyce has guided organizations to achieve their priorities through implementation of performance driven and customer focused processes that emphasize employee engagement, diversity and inclusion and superior training and communication. Formerly Chief HR Officer for University of Maryland School of Medicine Faculty Physicians, Inc. (FPI) and Vice President of HR for Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC), she has presented at national and state wide workshops that cover a variety of topics to include, communication in healthcare, patient experience improvement, women in leadership, strategic planning and diversity, inclusion and implicit bias. She is certified by the Academy of Communication in Healthcare (ACH) as a relationship-centered workshop facilitator. She co-facilitates communication workshops for the clinical faculty for the University of Maryland School of Medicine.In addition, Joyce obtained several coaching certificates in 2019. From the Physician Coaching Institute, she was certified as a Physician Development Coach. Joyce holds a Masters in Liberal Arts from St. Johns College of Annapolis. She is a member of the Chesapeake Human Resources Association and International Coach Federation Maryland Chapter and the Society for Human Resources. Her present community commitments include member of the Board of Directors of Hospice of the Chesapeake (HOC) where she serves as secretary of the board and is on the governance and executive committees. This year Joyce became a member of the Luminis Health System Board of Trustees and the Luminis Health Clinical Enterprise Board of Trustees. Joyce is also active with the YWCA of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County where she has served in a variety of roles, President of the Board, co-chair of the Safehouse Building Campaign and presently is the non-board member of the YWCA Finance Committee. She and her husband, Dr. Errol Phillip, M.D. have resided in Crofton, Maryland and have four adult children and 7 grandchildren.
Cameron J. McCoy, Ph.D., is the Vice President and Vice Provost for Strategic Initiatives at Lehigh University. He is accountable for leading enterprise-wide external engagements, aligning careers and economic development, and enabling institutional innovation through design thinking and internal consultation.
Dr. McCoy completed his graduate studies at the University of Oklahoma, M.A. (Organization Leadership), Doctoral (Interdisciplinary), and his undergraduate degrees (History, Social Studies, and Architectural Studies) at Washington State University, cum laude, with Honors and Global certificates. His research interests combine economics and educational administration in evaluating university organizational economic engagement approaches. His recent work explores allocative inefficiency of boundary spanning functions in US higher education.
McCoy is a graduate of the Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership and served as an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow at George Mason University and Southern New Hampshire University in 2018.
Sue Reyes has worked at San Diego State University for over 18 years providing Information Technology support primarily for Enrollment Services projects and initiatives. She has played a key role in paperless application processing and electronic transcript processing. She is the main technical support for EDI transcript processing and document imaging within Enrollment Services as well as the lead developer for SDSU’s OnBase ECM software. She has also served as an Oracle Application Developer, EDI Developer, SQL DBA and is a Certified OnBase System Administrator and OnBase Workflow Administrator. Sue joined the AACRAO SPEEDE committee in 2012 and was the acting Chair for the 2017-2018 year. Sue has represented AACRAO on the PESC Change Control Board and as a member of the PESC Seal of Approval Committee.
Mary Strain leads strategic alliance development for Hyland’s blockchain credentialing solutions and other innovative solutions. Hyland, a leading content services provider, is revolutionizing the way organizations around the world issue and verify records leveraging the Blockchain as a secure anchor of trust.
Capstone Abstract:
This study compared retention rates of students who experienced a strengths-based freshman seminar curriculum to those who did not. Whether enrolled in a freshman seminar or not, freshmen who did not take the StrengthsFinder® assessment had a retention rate 28 percentage points below those who took the assessment and were enrolled in the strengths-based freshman seminar. This same percentage difference applied to students who took the StrengthsFinder® assessment and enrolled in a non-strengths-based freshman seminar. Students who took the StrengthsFinder assessment but were not required to enroll in a freshman seminar course per their program or admission requirements had a higher mean ACT score but were retained at a rate 20 percentage points lower than those in the strengths-based freshman seminar/learning community.
2020 AACRAO Elections - Nominations and Elections Committee Candidate
I have served in the Carolina Association for 14 years in many leadership roles from Ed-Op Committee and School Counselor Conferences to VP of South Carolina for Admissions.
I currently serve as the Director of Recruitment, Admission, and Orientation at a medium sized technical/community college. Prior to this role, I spent eight years at four-year private institution. I think my perspective from both "worlds" makes me uniquely qualified to serve AACRAO with a diverse viewpoint.
I feel it is time for me to expand my network and servant heart beyond CACRAO. Allowing others to enjoy similar professional development opportunities, I have experienced. I think you will find I have an “all in” spirit. I strive for a standard of best in my work.
Beyond my personal development, I hoping to help shape the admission profession at a higher level. I am passionate about the work we do as admission professionals. I would like to help continue building on the foundations others have set. The thought of being “at the table” for discussions and development, makes me excited!
AACRAO has been a big part of my career for more than 15 years. I enjoy the people I meet and the colleagues with whom I am able to coordinate on work questions. AACRAO has afforded me the opportunity to work with the finest Admissions and Registrar people in the United States! Being a part of the N&E Committee will allow me to give back to the organization that has given me so much over the years.
My name is Pam Walden and I am currently the Associate Registrar at Illinois State University. I began my career at Illinois State University in July, 1992. I first joined IACRAO in 2009, serving as the Website Manager. Since then I have held several board positions within the association – Technology Committee Chair, President-Elect, President, and Past President. I had the pleasure of serving on IACRAO’s board from 2009 – 2017. Having served on the board for nearly ten years, I understand how important it is to have the right people in the right positions. Because of this experience, I understand how those positions work together to advance the association in the right direction. I would be honored to serve AACRAO on the Nominations and Elections Committee.
I have served for the past three decades in the higher education profession. My roles have included serving as the director of admissions for a graduate school, the director of an institution's one-stop shop for graduate and correspondence/online students and the registrar's office. In my current position as AVP of Academic Records/Registrar I oversee policy and procedure for both admissions and the registrar's offices throughout our 15 campuses.
Over my tenure in higher education I have seen a decline in the amount of participation when it comes to voting for officers in our professional organizations. I would like as much as possible to aid in the process of getting the word out and encouraging the membership to partake in this process. Now more than ever our colleagues need to partcipate in professional development and be directed by competent and professional leaders.
A little about myself, I have twenty years of experience in higher education within the registrar's office and have been a member of AACRAO for the past 12 years. I spent eighteen years at Montana State University and currently I serve as the University Registrar at Louisiana State University of Alexandria.
I believe to get the most out of your memberships is to be involved. I have had the distinct pleasure to serve both regional and national associations over the years, during my time with PACRAO; I served on the local arrangements committee, the nominations and election committee and secretary for the board. Currently, I serve as the chair for the Graduation Committee for AACRAO and this past year I had the pleasure of serving as co-chair for volunteers for the 2020 annual conference.
My experience in higher education and dedication to this profession is why I would be honored to serve on the Nominations and Election Committee. If you know me; you know I do not need a reason to start up a conversation with someone; I can pretty much talk to anyone. If you don't know me; don't worry, we will be friends shortly and I will have your name on the ballot to serve on a committee or board and work with you on a presentation.
AACRAO has opened up so many doors for me, I have presented at the conference for the past 6 years with colleagues around the country, and co-wrote an article for the College and University publication on Commencement. AACRAO has made it possible to connect with colleagues around the world leading to a network of associates, that are always willing to share ideas and experiences.
We are constantly being asked to do more with less and we have been living in one of the most unique times. We need people to serve our association that are willing to speak up, are passionate about serving students, and who can help guide us through these unprecedented times. I promise to help find the best candidates to serve us!
I am excited and grateful to be considered for the Nominations & Elections Committee. Participating in this committee is a way to serve the membership, give back to an organization that has benefited me, and shape the future direction of AACRAO.
My work in the registrar profession began when I joined Academic Support Resources at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2014. Since then, I have been active in my regional organization (UMACRAO), attended multiple AACRAO conferences, served on AACRAO’s Federal Compliance Committee, and presented at AACRAO conferences on topics including, trans-inclusive practices in a registrar’s office, FERPA, and academic policy development. I even ventured into the world of podcasts on For the Record. This year, I am chairing the Federal Compliance Committee.
Prior to my role in the registrar profession, I worked in higher education in two law schools, Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and the University of Minnesota. This has given me the perspective of working at a small private institution in professional education, in addition to my current experience at a large public institution. I intend to keep the broad range of AACRAO’s membership in mind as a member of the Nominations & Elections Committee.
I believe that my experience brings some key strengths to this role. First, I have a unique role within a registrar’s office that spans degree audits, academic policy, strategic communications, training on student records systems, and student data privacy. This role requires making effective decisions on a wide range of topics as well as collaboration, attention to detail, and change management. Second, my prior experience as a career counselor and coach will help me identify strengths of applicants for AACRAO’s leadership positions. I have reviewed countless resumes and cover letters and coached people to find their dream positions. Third, I have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, which are key values of AACRAO. I have worked in diversity recruitment programs for law students, served as an appointed Commissioner on my city’s Community Engagement Commission, and served our diverse student body in a variety of projects including co-leading a project to implement gender identity and pronoun fields in our student information system.
I hope to have the opportunity to serve AACRAO and its membership in this role. Thank you for your consideration.
Kristin Smigielski is the Dean of Enrollment Management at Parkland College, a community college in east central Illinois. She has been in Higher Education for 18 years. She is a member of the Illinois ACRAO (IACRAO) organization, where she has served as a district chair and President. Kristin currently serves on the AACRAO State & Regional Relations Committee.