Our Team: Advisors

She provides strategic leadership for the areas of curriculum, assessment, faculty development, distance learning, career and workforce education, and partnerships for educational equity. Prior to joining Valencia, Artze-Vega, who holds an EdD, served as assistant vice president for teaching and learning at Florida International University (FIU), leading such efforts as a gateway course project, a hybrid course initiative, and the comprehensive redesign of teaching evaluation. Prior to joining FIU, Artze-Vega taught English composition and enrollment management at the University of Miami. Most importantly, she is the proud wife of visual artist Sinuhe Vega; the proud mami of Kamilah, 13, and Delilah, 11; and forever indebted to extraordinary parents, Mayra and Elias. Her work is fueled by a commitment to equity and justice, implemented through love and service.

He is the director of OpenStax (formerly Connexions), a non-profit educational and scholarly publishing project he founded in 1999 to bring textbooks and learning materials into the Internet Age. Currently, Baraniuk is developing advanced machine learning algorithms for the personalized learning system OpenStax Tutor, which integrates text, video, simulations, problems, feedback hints, and tutoring and optimizes each student’s learning experience based on their background, context, and learning goals.

Baraniuk received a BSc degree in 1987 from the University of Manitoba, an MSc degree in 1988 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a PhD in 1992 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, all in electrical engineering.

He is currently a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2030 Scientific Committee and an advisor to the Alliance for the Future of Digital Learning, sponsored by the Mohammed bin Rashid Global Initiative (MBRGI). His co-edited books include: Scaling Up Success: Lessons Learned from Technology-based Educational Improvement; Digital Teaching Platforms: Customizing Classroom Learning for Each Student; Teacher Learning in the Digital Age: Online Professional Development in STEM Education; Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities in Education; Learning engineering for online education: Theoretical contexts and design-based examples; and The 60-Year Curriculum: New Models for Lifelong Learning in the Digital Economy.

Across her career in higher education, working both at universities and for commercial solution providers, she’s designed and scaled professional learning programs, recruited and developed high-value education partners, and reorganized teams to improve service quality and enhance profit margins.

Previously, Meaghan worked in executive and senior leadership roles at Faculty Guild, EVERFI, EDUCAUSE, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and Blackboard Inc. Concurrent with her work as a consultant, Meaghan serves on the board of Wiki Education, a spin-off of the Wikimedia Foundation which is the non-profit organization that runs Wikipedia. She also teaches American history online for the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

Meaghan’s mission is to provide higher education institutions with the technology and support they need to deliver transformative and sustainable instructional services for all learners.

Prior to becoming associate vice provost, he served VSU as chair of the Biology Department (2009-13), director of the Office of Sponsored Research (2012-15), and assistant vice president for research (2016-2020).

Faison earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Hampton University (1994) and PhD in neurosciences from the University of Virginia (2002). He received his post-doctoral training at Virginia Commonwealth University, before joining the faculty of VSU’s Biology Department in 2004. Faison has published and presented in the fields of developmental neuroscience, cognition, and student academic performance and has received grant funding from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation. Faison currently sits on the boards of the Virginia Farmer’s Market Association, where he serves as vice-president, and Friends of the Lower Appomattox River.

She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in learning theory, motivation, research methods, statistics, health psychology and other topics at Mason, James Madison University in the School of Psychology and Florida State University in the Department of Educational Research.

Kitsantas is the recipient of a George Mason University Teaching Excellence Award and the 2019 Barry J. Zimmerman Award for Outstanding Contributions to the fields of studying and self-regulated learning research by the Studying and Self-Regulated Learning Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. She is also a fellow of the American Psychological Association, Division 15: Educational Psychology. Presently, she is serving as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Experimental Education. She received her PhD in educational psychology with a specialization in development, learning, and instruction from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York.

She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair also directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and Truth, Racial Healing, & Transformation Campus Centers. McNair currently serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives: Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Campus Centers, Strengthening Guided Pathways and Career Success by Ensuring Students Are Learning, and Purposeful Pathways: Faculty Planning and Curricular Coherence. She is the lead author of the books From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016). McNair is a co-author on the publication Assessing Underserved Students’ Engagement in High-Impact Practices. In March 2020, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education named McNair one of thirty-five outstanding women who have tackled some of higher education’s toughest challenges, exhibited extraordinary leadership skills, and made a positive difference in their communities.

Prior to joining AAC&U, McNair served as the assistant director of the National College Access Network in Washington DC. McNair’s previous experience also includes serving as a social scientist/assistant program director in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources at the National Science Foundation; director of university relations at the University of Charleston in West Virginia; statewide coordinator for the Educational Talent Search Project at the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission; and the interim associate director of admissions and recruitment services at West Virginia State University. McNair earned her bachelor’s degree in political science and English at James Madison University and holds an MA in English from Radford University and a doctorate in higher education administration from George Washington University.

In this work, she seeks to illuminate what good teaching means and how it unfolds, how professors learn to teach, and professional development practices and programs for supporting teaching improvement. Neumann’s research also examines professors’ intellectual careers, doctoral students’ learning of research, and academic organization and leadership. Her books include Convergent Teaching: Tools to Spark Deeper Learning in College (with Aaron M. Pallas, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019), a reconceptualization of undergraduate teaching with implications for improvement.

A fellow of the American Education Research Association and an elected member of the National Academy of Education, she also is the recipient of her field’s top two research awards: the Research Achievement Award of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the Exemplary Research Award of the American Educational Research Association, Division J (Higher and Postsecondary Education). Neumann is past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. For over a decade she directed the Program in Higher and Postsecondary Education at Teachers College where she also served as department chair. Neumann earned a BA from the University of Texas, Austin, an MA from the University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley (formerly Pan American University), and a PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

She was named one of Diverse: Issues in Higher Education’s Leading Women in 2018, the American Association for Women in Community College’s Woman of the Year in 2017, and one of Washington Monthly’s 16 most innovative higher education leaders in 2016, among other recognitions.

Stout currently serves as chair of the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research Advisory Board at North Carolina State University, as co-chair of the University of Maryland Global Campus Doctorate of Management in Community College Policy and Administration Advisory Board, and as a member of the Common App Board of Directors, the College Promise National Advisory Board, HERS Board of Directors, and the NJCAA Foundation Board of Directors. She also represents Achieving the Dream on the Washington Higher Education Secretariat, participates as a mentor and frequent presenter for the Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship and Aspen New Presidents Fellowship, and has been a presenter for the League for Innovation Executive Leadership Institute.

Prior to serving as president and CEO at ATD, Stout was president of Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) from 2001 to 2015. She has also held leadership positions at Camden County College and Harford Community College. Stout holds a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Delaware, a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Baltimore, and a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Delaware and honorary degrees from Miami Dade College and Montgomery County Community College.