fellows 0001

Visiting Fellows 2000-2001

James L. Bess conducts research on organizational and faculty issues and is a consultant to colleges and universities throughout the world. He was on the faculty of New York University and taught at Columbia University's Teachers College. Jim has also held a number of administrative positions in institutions of higher education in the Northeast and has written and edited books on topics such as teaching, faculty effectiveness, tenure, creative leadership, and collegiality. He is currently working on a handbook of organizational theory for colleges and universities and is completing several books and papers on higher education policy. Jim is also working on developing a journal, the theme of which will be the convergence of theory and practice in higher education.

John M. Carfora has experienced higher education from numerous perspectives. Currently the Assistant Director of grants and Contracts at Dartmouth College, where he also directs faculty outreach efforts, John has taught economics and international affairs both in the US and abroad and currently teaches a course in grantwritng at Simmons College. During the late 1970s John was a research scholar at Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty in Munich, Germany, where he authored a variety of studies on social, economic, and political themes. John has conducted interviews with scores of college and university presidents and is interested in writing about leadership in higher education.

Mark Lapping is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Southern Maine (USM). Prior to returning to the faculty, he served for six years as provost and vice president for academic affairs at USM. He was also founding dean of the Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University, dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Design at Kansas State University, and was the founding director of the School of Rural Planning and Development at Ontario's University of Guelph. Mark has also taught forestry at the Universities of Missouri and Vermont, and planning at Virginia Tech. He is the author of six books and many scholarly articles in the areas of rural planning and development, environmental planning, agricultural policy, and higher education. He serves on the boards of several journals and has consulted for governments and agencies throughout the world. Most recently he has been active in efforts to democratize educational systems in Estonia. Among Mark's scholarly pursuits is a persistent interest in exploring what it means to be a member of an institution of higher learning in a democratic culture. On a more local level, he plans to explore the challenge of bridging the gulf between student and academic affairs.

Amy Kirle Lezberg, retired Associate Director of the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Qatar, to which she received a Fulbright Fellowship for the Fall terms of 2000-2001. An expert on accreditation and assessment in site-based and nontraditional education who has given more than one hundred fifty workshops on these subjects, she has recently been involved in consulting on the quality control of programs and branches of institutions accredited in the United States as well as freestanding American-type institutions abroad, having helped several governments promulgate regulations for the establishment of such entities. In addition to acting directly as a consultant to these governments, she has given presentations on the topic both at NAFSA conferences and throughout Western and Central Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean under the sponsorship of the Fulbright, Soros, and AMIDEAST Foundations as well as the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (formerly the USIA) of the U.S. Department of State. She is the author of the chapters on accreditation and distance learning in the forthcoming set of booklets published by the U.S. Department of State, If You Want to Study in the United States, as well as numerous articles both in the United States and elsewhere.

Brenda Smith, former Vice President for Fiscal Affairs and Chief Financial Officer at Bradford College, is currently overseeing the business wind down of the College, which closed permanently last May. She is also enrolled in a master's degree program, Philanthropy and Media, at the Visionaries Institute of Suffolk University. Brenda has held senior finance positions at Merrimack College, the School for Field Studies, Wang Labs, and the United States Agency for International Development in Pakistan and Bolivia. She is a CPA and has been active in NERCHE's Chief Financial Officers Think Tank. As a Visiting Fellow, Brenda will begin to chronicle the last year of Bradford College's two-century history, focusing on the impact that the college closing has had on the students, faculty and staff, trustees, city of Haverhill, and on other institutions of higher education. Brenda will develop a checklist of warning signs for small colleges and other tuition-driven institutions, a timely endeavor given the recent spate of closings of small private colleges. Her work will inform others as to the policies, procedures, and practices that are necessary to maintain financial viability.

Diane W. Strommer returned to Rhode Island last fall from two years in the United Arab Emirates where she served as the founding dean of Zayed University, a new national university for women with campuses in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. She is currently on leave from the University of Rhode Island where she has been the Dean of University College and Special Academic Programs since 1980. Diane has been active in the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), NAFSA: Association of International Educators, and the College Consortium for International Students. She has served on the board of the National Resource Center for the First Year Experience and Students in Transition since 1991 and was the founder and first president of the Association of Deans and Directors of University College and Undergraduate Studies. Diane has written and consulted on academic advising, learning communities, administrative structures for beginning students, general education, international education, and college teaching. She was a member of the NERCHE Liberal Learning Think Tank from 1993 to 1998. She is currently working on a project that explores the ways in which the American "model" of higher education has been exported and will help NERCHE plan a think tank for deans.