James A. Bess, who joined NERCHE as a Visiting Fellow in 2000, will continue as a Fellow during the 2001-2 academic year.

James A. Kilmurray is a lifelong educator who has focused on education as a means to economic independence. He is the founder and President of Education On-line, a Boston-based educational research and development company specializing in on-line education and training. He has taught at the Boston University College of Education and the UMass Boston Graduate College of Education and is currently an Adjunct Professor at the University of Phoenix Online in the education graduate program. Since selling his business in 1997, Jim has been working as a consultant to educational institutions in the development and implementation of distance education strategies. He has also served as an educational policy advisor to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and has written white papers on adult education for both the Dukakis administration and the Joint Education Committee of the House & Senate. He served as a member of Governor Weld's Technology Advisory Committee and was a contributor to the TAC Report "Mass Education Online: 21^st Century Skills for Lifelong Learning." At NERCHE, Jim is focusing on socially responsible collaborations between for-profit and not-for-profit providers of distance education. 

Neil Severance is the former Vice President/Dean for Student Affairs at the Rhode Island School of Design. Previously he directed the Protestant Campus Ministry, Slippery Rock University, where he also taught an award- winning interdisciplinary first-year studies program. While at Slippery Rock, Neil was selected by the Danforth Foundation to be an Underwood Fellow. His research centered on the development of identity in young adults. Neil first joined NERCHE as a member of the Student Affairs Think Tank in 1995. He has been very active in the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators as an invited conference presenter and chair of the Small College Network. Neil has also served on the advisory board of the Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown University. He is currently working as a consultant to the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts at Wabash College in Indiana. The Center aims to serve as a catalyst for reshaping liberal arts education in the 21st century. The Center is dedicated to exploring, testing, and promoting the relevance and efficacy of the liberal arts. 

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