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 advising. Akilah served as the Alvin Community College’s director of dual enrollment and then the director of college and career pathways, championing pathways reform for the institution. In 2020, Akilah became the first Black dean of students in Alvin Community College’s 70-year history. Dr. Martin last served on a campus as dean of student transition and academic engagement at Texas Southern University, and most recently served as a strategy director with Complete College America. Akilah holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Southwest Texas State University, a master’s degree in Counselor Education from Texas Southern University, and a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership – Higher Education from the University of Houston–Clear Lake.

As an Assistant Vice President for the Gardner Institute, Dr. Martin serves as one of the leads for the Intermediaries for Scale project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

As a first-generation college student who struggled to find her academic stride, during her junior year in undergraduate school at (Southwest) Texas State University, she finally realized that she could be successful in college. During that year, she joined the first African-American Sorority founded in 1908, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sorority, Inc., and she learned the value of time management, which led her to academic success for the first time ever! Akilah went on to earn a Master’s degree from Texas Southern University in Education and a doctoral degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Houston – Clear Lake.

As an only child to parents who did not pursue higher education, Akilah’s educational journey developed within her a passion for students who have been able to succeed beyond their environment and circumstances. Her passion is evident in how she serves students, ensures their sense of belonging, and roots for their success in and outside of the classroom! Akilah has managed to positively impact students for over 20 years through her Student Services work as a student activities coordinator, academic advisor, director of programs, adjunct faculty, and Dean of Students. Akilah’s passion and experience with K-12, community colleges and universities has now led her to the Gardner Institute, where she brings her knowledge, strengths, and skillset to help cultivate relationships and influence policies that will significantly impact the educational experience of students across the states.

Akilah is mom to her 17-year-old high school senior! She enjoys creating memories (outside as much as possible despite the Houston heat) with family and friends. Traveling has become more of an interest, and she loves Christmas movies.

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 Treasurer of the Elon University Board of Trustees and Corporation.

He was the Vice President for Business and Finance at Agnes Scott College and has served in the administration at the University of Virginia, Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In 2018, Mr. Whittington was named the national Distinguished Business Officer by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). This is the highest and most prestigious award and honor offered by NACUBO.

He has an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MBA from Duke University. Mr. Whittington is regularly a national speaker on the topics of higher education finance, institutional planning and construction. Additionally, he is a member of NACUBO and SACUBO and is a finance and administration evaluator for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

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. Prior to his doctoral studies, Oscar led the first-generation initiative at Elon University. He is a co-author of Connections are Everything: A College Student's Guide to Relationship-Rich Education and holds a bachelor’s degree from Elon University and a master’s degree from Harvard University.

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 Jaswal, Megan Lyster, and countless students and colleagues to assess, refine, and support colleges and universities across the country who have adopted and adapted the “Being Human in STEM (HSTEM)” course (see Bunnell, Jaswal, & Lyster, 2023, Routledge Press). This student, faculty, and staff co-designed course grew out of a 4-day student protest and occupation of the Amherst College library in 2015, in which students holding marginalized identities on campus spoke to their experiences of exclusion and lack of belonging on campus. Now taught across the country, HSTEM seeks to prepare students, faculty, and staff to face moments of challenge and crisis as partners. Through this work, Bunnell and colleagues are working to support educators across the country to work in partnership with their students to enable all individuals in the community to thrive, as full humans, in the academy.

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 Bachelor of Arts in English, Master of Education Administration, a Graduate Certificate in Rhetoric and Composition, and a Doctorate of Higher Education Leadership.

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 additional workshops and sessions on equitable curriculum and pedagogy, which inform her practice in the classroom and, in particular, her efforts, as Guttman’s FYE Coordinator and former Coordinator of Writing and Writing Across the Curriculum, to center curriculum and pedagogy on anti-racism and linguistic justice. Dr. Gilbert’s recent book- and article-length publications focus on intersectionality and advocacy in contemporary popular culture and fiction. She is the co-editor of Race in Young Adult Speculative Fiction, winner of the Children’s Literature Association’s Edited Book Award, and the forthcoming special issue of South Central Review, “Intersectional Feminist Detective Fiction,” her contribution to which was awarded a Popular Culture Association Earl Bargannier Award. She is writing a book-length manuscript, Composing an Anti-Racist Academy, about culturally responsive pedagogy, anti-racism, and linguistic justice in the Composition classroom and beyond, a version of which she has presented in spaces across the nation, including CUNY’s renowned Teaching Matters series and the nationally recognized Gardner Institute’s Symposium on Transforming the Post-Secondary Experience. She is a 2024 Gardner Institute Russell Edgerton Innovation Fellow, a 2023 Andrew W. Mellon Transformative Learning in the Humanities Faculty Fellow, and a 2022 recipient of the American Association of Community Colleges’ Dale P. Parnell Faculty Distinction Recognition.

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 executing the state’s master plan for higher education, managing the state’s performance and quality outcomes formulas, as well as increasing degree attainment and protect students and consumers.

Smith has devoted more than five decades of service to public higher education. In 1999, following administrative roles at Wichita State University and the University of Tennessee at Martin, he became the Provost at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania (SRU) later president, retiring as President Emeritus in 2012. He was named Chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Martin (UTM) and Chancellor Emeritus for service between 2015 and 2017.

Since 2017 in his current role, he created and directed the University of Tennessee Executive Leadership Institute and the Tennessee Higher Education Innovation and Leadership Fellows program for the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. These two programs have helped prepare a new generation of executive leaders for all Tennessee public higher education sectors.

In 1980-1981, he was competitively selected as a Fellow for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Secretary, serving in the Carter and Reagan administrations.

His work has led to more than two dozen national institutional honors for innovation in enrollment management. In 2011, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers awarded him their inaugural “Strategic Enrollment Management Leadership” award. He has also been recognized as a "First-Year Student Advocate" by the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition; and recipient of two national teaching awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). In 2005, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Letters from Rajasthan Vidyapeeth University in Udaipur India for his help in developing educational opportunities in rural India.

Smith and his wife, Ramona, live in Franklin, Tennessee. His son and daughter-in-law live in Knoxville, Tennessee and his daughter and son-in-law live in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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, music, and even sports. In more than a decade as a columnist on graduate education for The Chronicle of Higher Education ("The Graduate Adviser"), he has helped graduate schools think about how to change to meet the needs of changing students during exigent times. Len's newest book, Academic Writing as if Readers Matter, takes in all of these pursuits. It's a pithy and witty handbook filled with advice and examples from across the arts and sciences--and it's also a hortatory call for academic writing that will build community with different kinds of readers, to serve the public good.

We cover a lot of ground in this podcast conversation with Len, from his early career as a scholar, his concerns as a higher ed reformer, and the path that has led to his new book.

Visit his website: www.lcassuto.com