62nd Annual Meeting February 8-11, 2009 New Orleans, Louisiana

FEATURED SPEAKERS - SACRAO 2009 CONFERENCE
 

Keynote Address - Sunday, February 8, 2009 - Opening Session 5 p.m.
Belle Wheelan, Ph.D.
President, Commission on Colleges
Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

Dr. Wheelan currently serves as President of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and is the first African American and the first woman to serve in this capacity. Her career spans 35 years and includes the roles of faculty member, chief student services officer, campus provost, college president and Secretary of Education. In several of those roles she was the first African American and/or woman to serve in those capacities.

Dr. Wheelan received her Bachelor's degree from Trinity University in Texas (1972) with a double major in Psychology and Sociology; her Master's from Louisiana State University (1974) in Developmental Educational Psychology; and her Doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin (1984) in Educational Administration with a special concentration in community college leadership.

She has received numerous awards and recognition including four honorary degrees; the Distinguished Graduate Award from Trinity University (2002), and from the College of Education at the University of Texas at Austin (1992); Washingtonian Magazine's 100 Most Powerful Women in Washington, DC (2001); and the AAUW Woman of Distinction Award (2002).

She holds and has held membership in numerous local, state and national organizations including Rotary International; Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.; the American College Testing, Inc., board of directors; American Association of Community Colleges' board of directors; and the President's Round Table of the National Council on Black American Affairs.

Dr. Wheelan attributes her success to hard work, endurance, tenacity, and being in the right place at the right time. She recognizes that prayer and support from family and friends make anything possible.

Dr. Wheelan is the mother of an adult son named Reginald.

Plenary Session - Wednesday, February 11, 2009 - 9:15 a.m.

Nicole Farmer Hurd, Ph.D.
Executive Director
National College Advising Corps

Nicole Farmer Hurd, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of National College Advising Corps. The Corps is a coalition of university-based college access programs serving students in eleven states. The Corps institutions, funded by a lead grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, include the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Alabama, University of California at Berkeley, Brown University, University of Missouri, University of Utah, University of Illinois, Penn State, Franklin & Marshall, Tufts University, and the University of Virginia. The national headquarters are located at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Hurd, who served as an Assistant Dean and Director of the Center for Undergraduate Excellence at the University of Virginia, was the founding director of the College Guide Program. UVa's College Guide Program places recent graduates in public high schools throughout the state to partner with guidance counselors in an effort to increase the college-going rate. In its first year of outreach, some schools saw a fifteen percent increase in college matriculation rates as well as increases in the number of students taking the SATs and filling out financial aid forms. The Guide Program, which started with a grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation and now enjoys support from AmeriCorps and a variety of community foundations, has gained national attention and serves as the model for the National College Advising Corps.

As the founding director of the Center for Undergraduate Excellence at UVa, Hurd worked with successful Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Fulbright, and Truman Scholar candidates as well as leading the first university-wide office of undergraduate research.

Hurd remains an administrator in higher education serving in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lectures widely to both students and educators on college access and advising. A 2007 Recipient of the Governor of Virginia's Award for Volunteerism and Community Service and the 2007 Faculty Recipient for the University of Virginia's Raven Award, she holds a PhD in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia, a Master's degree from Georgetown University, and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame. She and her husband, Bill, reside in Chapel Hill and have two children, Monica (7) and Matthew (5).

T4.05 - the ACE In Support of Women session

As Director of the Office of Women in Higher Education (OWHE), Dr. Phillips is responsible for designing and implementing programs to advance women in higher education administration, including national and regional leadership forums; creating the framework for leadership training offered by the ACE State Networks as well as offering general advice, counsel, and support to state coordinators; collaborating with ACE’s Center for Racial and Ethnic Equity (CAREE) to advance women of color; consulting with the ACE Commission on Women in Higher Education; authoring and editing office publications and materials; and contributing to a variety of ACE events and efforts.

Prior to joining ACE, Dr. Phillips was a tenured member of the English Department at Cleveland State University, where she served four years as President of the University Faculty Senate and two years as Chair of the Ohio Faculty Council. During that period, the Ohio Faculty Council, representing all state-funded institutions of higher education, presented to the Ohio Board of Regents the first statewide faculty agreement: a statement on the need to grant domestic partner benefits at the signatory institutions. She has also taught part-time at the George Washington University and has been recently appointed as the public member of the national Accreditation Commission for Audiology Education.

Dr. Phillips earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts from the University of New Hampshire and both an M.A. in Foreign Language Education with concentrations in French and Linguistics and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Louisville. She is a member of the Phi Kappa Phi honor society.

In an earlier career, she was a member of the adult and children’s theatre companies at Theatre-by-the-Sea, a regional repertory company.

She is the author of a manual entitled Reaching: Ascending the Ladder of Academic Administration Rung by Rung and is currently (and possibly eternally) working on a book entitled, Wellsprings: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Donna’s areas of interest and expertise are in women’s higher education leadership, career mapping and strategies for advancement, working with multiple constituencies, and women and negotiating.

SACRAO wishes to thank the Louisiana Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers for its financial support which has enabled us to bring these great speakers to the conference.