CIES Advisory Board Members

Dr. Richard Bissell is Executive Director of the Policy and Global Affairs at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington, D.C.  Also, he serves as the Director of the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy at NAS.  Prior to joining the NAS, Dr. Bissell held numerous prestigious appointments including as head of the interim secretariat of the World Commission on Dams, as chair and member of the Inspection Panel of the World Bank, and as the senior administrator of the Science and Technology Bureau of the U.S. Agency for International Development.  He holds a Ph.D. in International Economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston.

Victor J. Boschini, Jr., Texas Christian University’s 10th chancellor, earned the bachelor’s degree from Mount Union College, the master’s degree from Bowling Green State University, and the doctorate in higher education administration from Indiana University. He has also received Honorary Doctorates from Lincoln University and The University of Mount Union.  In 2005 he was the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Indiana University College of Education.  Dr. Boschini came to TCU after serving as president of Illinois State University, where he also previously served as vice president for student affairs and associate professor in the Department of Educational Administration and Foundations. Prior to that he held administrative and teaching positions at Butler and Indiana universities.
     
Dr. Boschini is currently serving as president of the Board of Directors of Independent Colleges & Universities of Texas (ICUT).  Previously he served a term as Chair of the National Association of Independent Colleges & Universities (NAICU), headquartered in Washington, D.C.   His primary area of advocacy/interest in both groups has been maintaining accessibility for all students to higher education – particularly through federal and state supported financial aid programs.

Dr. Michael Brintnall is executive director of the American Political Science Association.  He formerly directed the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, the United States national accrediting body for the Masters degree in public administration and public policy.  Previous positions include Vice President for Aca­dem­ic Affairs at Mount Vernon College in Washington, DC, Director of the Economic Development Program Evaluation Office at the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and faculty appointments in political science at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island and Mount Vernon College, in Washington DC.  He received the Ph.D. in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. Research and public policy interests include urban public policy and development, nonprofit organizations and new models of public governance, and international roles of scholarly associations in civil society and development.  He is a founding member of the InterAmerican Network for Public Administration Education.

Dr. Ángel Cabrera is the sixth president of George Mason University. Prior to joining George Mason University, Cabrera served as the 11th president of Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona from 2004 to 2012, being designated President Emeritus in April 2012. He was professor and dean of IE Business School in Madrid, Spain, between 1998 and 2004.

Cabrera’s expertise in international business and higher education has been recognized by top international organizations. In 2008, the World Economic Forum appointed him chairman of the Global Agenda Council for promoting entrepreneurship, and The Aspen Institute named him a Henry Crown Fellow. In 2010, he was named topic leader for the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. Cabrera is a frequent speaker at prestigious international forums, and he has written numerous papers in leading academic journals. His latest book, Being Global: How to Think, Act and Lead in a Transformed World, was published by Harvard Business Review. His views on global leadership, higher education, and corporate citizenship have been quoted by leading global media, including The Economist, Time, CNN, CNBC, El País, Forbes, the International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. BusinessWeek honored him in 2004 as one of 25 “Stars of Europe.” Cabrera serves on the board of specialty retailer PetSmart. He also serves on the boards of the ESSEC Business School, the Iberoamerican Academy of Management and the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation in Madrid. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Future Trends Forum in Madrid, and he is the past chairman of the Georgia Tech Advisory Board.

A native of Spain, Cabrera holds BS and MS degrees in engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain’s premier engineering university. He earned MS and PhD degrees in psychology and cognitive science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, which he attended as a Fulbright Scholar.

Dr. William Durden assumed his duties as president of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania on July 1, 1999.  Prior to Dickinson, Dr. Durden was president of the Sylvan Academy of Sylvan Learning Systems, Inc. and vice president for Academic Affairs of the Caliber Learning network, a joint distance-learning venture of Sylvan and MCI Corporation.  He also serves as a senior fellow of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.  He is a 1971 graduate of Dickinson and holds M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in German Languages and Literature from the Johns Hopkins University.  Previously Dr. Durden was for 16 years Executive Director of the Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth (formerly the Center for Talented Youth), a division of Johns Hopkins, and a member of the university’s Department of German.  He was also senior education consultant to the U.S. Department of State and chaired its Advisory Committee on Exceptional Children and Youth.  Dr. Durden has received a number of academic awards, including the Fulbright at the University of Basle, Switzerland and the Klingenstein Fellowship at Columbia University.  He has held research grants from the American Council of Learned Societies and other organizations.  Dr. Durden is author of numerous books, articles, commentaries, and book reviews on topics ranging from literary criticism to American educational policy and practice both at the precollegiate and collegiate levels.

Ron Kassimir returned to the Social Science Research Council half-time in February 2012 as Senior Advisor.   Working with colleagues, Ron is providing leadership and support for Africa-related work at the Council.  From 1996 to 2005, Ron was first a Program Officer and then a Program Director at the Council, where he managed its Africa Program and (from 2000-2005) the International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship (IDRF) Program. He also coordinated research networks on youth and globalization and humanitarian intervention. In 2005, Ron became Associate Dean at The New School for Social Research and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics, and in 2007 moved to The New School’s Office of the Provost where he is now Associate Provost for Research and Special Projects.  Ron earned a PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 1996.  He has published on religion, civil society, higher education, and globalization in Africa as well as on youth activism and civic engagement. He is co-editor of Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa: Global-Local Networks of Power (Cambridge University Press, 2001), Youth Activism: An International Encyclopedia (Greenwood Publishing, 2005), and Youth, Globalization and the Law (Stanford University Press, 2007). He most recently published (with Connie Flanagan) “Youth Civic Engagement in the Developing World: Challenges and Opportunities” in the Handbook of Research on Civic Engagement in Youth (Wiley, 2010).

Dr. Linda Katehi is Chancellor of University of California, Davis (UC Davis). She holds a joint appointment with the Program of Gender and Women Studies at the University of Illinois. Prior to joining the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, she served as the John A. Edwardson Dean of Engineering, and as Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN, and as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Graduate Education in the College of Engineering, and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.  She holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from UCLA.

Dr. Ronald D. Liebowitz is President of Middlebury College. He began his tenure at Middlebury as instructor of Geography in 1984, being promoted to full professor in 1993.  Other positions he held include appointments as Dean of the Faculty, Vice President of the College, Provost and Executive Vice President, and as acting President. Dr. Liebowitz is the recipient of numerous national fellowships from such prestigious organizations as the National Council on Soviet and East European Research, the International Research and Exchange Board (IREX), the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the George F. Kennan Institute, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. He also served as the first board chair for the National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education (NITLE). Dr. Liebowitz holds a Ph.D. in Geography from Columbia University in New York.

Bette Loiselle received her Master of Science at the University of Illinois and her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin in 1987.  After teaching graduate-level tropical biology field courses for two years in Costa Rica for the Organization for Tropical Studies, she accepted the position as Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.  From 1997-2003, Loiselle was the Director of the International Center for Tropical Ecology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, a collaboration between the University and the Missouri Botanical Garden.   After 19 year tenure at UM-St. Louis, Loiselle moved to the National Science Foundation to become Director of the Division of Environmental Biology, which oversees scientific funding in the fields of ecology, evolution, systematic biology, and ecosystem science; the Division is also engaged in many cross-disciplinary and interagency programs.  Following this 2-yr detail to NSF, Loiselle will join the faculty at the University of Florida-Gainesville in August 2011 where she will become Director of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program in the Center for Latin American Studies, and Full Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation.  Loiselle has served on many boards including Association for Tropical Biology, The Nature Conservancy-Missouri, the American Ornithologist Union, and Cooper Ornithological Society.  She is currently Chair of the Board of Directors for the Organization for Tropical Studies, a consortium of over 60 universities.  Loiselle was a Fulbright Scholar to Argentina in 2004.  Her research interests, in a broad sense, are in the behavioral ecology and conservation of tropical vertebrates and the evolutionary ecology of plant-animal mutualisms.  Her research has focused on comparative studies of the mating systems of birds, the interactions between animals and plants, especially animals that disperse the seeds of tropical plants and contribute to forest regeneration, and the application of Geographic Information Systems technology to biodiversity conservation.  Her studies have direct relevance to the conservation of tropical rain forests.  She conducts her research in the Andes of Colombia, the Amazon of Ecuador, and the highly endangered Atlantic Forests of Brazil.  An important focus of the Tropical Conservation and Development Program at UF and Loiselle’s own personal goals is the training of future environmental leaders from developing tropical countries.

As founding President and CEO of the Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), Dr. Michael B. McCall oversees a System that has an annual operating budget of over $670 million to operate a seamless complex System of 16 colleges with over 67 campuses. Since December, 1998, he has stewarded the merging of 28 community and technical colleges into 16 accredited comprehensive community and technical colleges serving over 100,000 students with more than 600 credit program options that result in certificates, diplomas, or associate degrees.  Under Dr. McCall’s leadership, KCTCS has become the largest provider of postsecondary education and workforce training in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, with 4,919 businesses served in 2008 via his workforce initiatives.

To meet the unmet need of pursuing higher education in an online, anywhere, anyplace, and anytime environment, KCTCS launched Dr. McCall’s virtual learning initiative entitled KCTCS Online that is completely learner-centered and will allow adults to pursue higher education 24/7, 365 days a year.  Other KCTCS accomplishments include the North American Racing Academy (first college-affiliated horse racing academy in the United States), Kentucky Coal Academy, Kentucky Fire Commission, and the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services. Dr. McCall has served for over 39 years in community and technical colleges being recognized for his advanced collaborative partnerships, economic development, and innovative use of technology.  On April 17, 2009 he was the recipient of Phi Theta Kappa’s prestigious State Community College Director Award of Distinction.

Harris Pastides is the 28th president of the University of South Carolina (USC), elected by the university's board of trustees on Aug. 1, 2008.  Previously, Pastides served as vice president for research and health sciences and dean of the Arnold School of Public Health. He and his wife, Patricia, first came to the university in 1998.

Leading by example, Pastides expects students, faculty and staff to set and exceed high expectations, push boundaries and embrace innovation. He is an advocate for student engagement beyond the classroom through leadership, service learning, international experience, internships and undergraduate research.  Under his leadership, Carolina's student population has grown to record levels among the system's eight universities on 12 campuses. Knowing that degree attainment significantly affects the quality of life in South Carolina, Pastides continues to spearhead nontraditional programs such as Palmetto College, Back to Carolina, Gamecock Gateway and Gamecock Guarantee to increase university access and affordability. In addition, he leads an unprecedented capital campaign to fund essential needs for knowledge, research, discovery and development.

Before joining the university's faculty, he was a professor of epidemiology and chairman of the department of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He received his master's of public health and his Ph.D. in epidemiology from Yale University.

Dr. Preston Pulliams took over as fifth president of Portland Community College (PCC) on May 24, 2004. He came to PCC after serving as vice-chancellor for Community Colleges for the State University of New York (SUNY) where he coordinated and directed the activities of the 30 community colleges in the SUNY system. Before joining the SUNY administration, Pulliams served as president of Orange County Community College in Middletown, New York from 1997 to 2003. From 1993 to 1997 he was president of the Highland Lakes Campus of the Oakland Community College District in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He served as vice-president for student affairs at the Community College of Philadelphia from 1985 to 1993, and he also served as dean of student services and counselor at Muskegon Community College from 1972 to 1984. In addition to his experience in community college administration, Dr. Pulliams has taught at the graduate and undergraduate level, and for several years taught civics, psychology and geography at a junior high school in Michigan. He has done extensive research and writing on student achievement, minority student success, counseling at the community college level and on establishing effective working relationships between boards and college presidents.

Dr. Pulliams has received numerous honors, awards and recognition at the colleges where he previously served. In addition he has served on an impressive array of community organizations, board and commissions. He expects to be equally active in the PCC District in the years ahead. Dr. Pulliams is a community college graduate, earning his associates degree in Science from Muskegon Community College. He received a bachelor’s degree in Social Science from Michigan State University, and master’s degree in Counseling and Personnel from Western Michigan University and an Ed.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Michigan.

Sidney A. Ribeau is the 16th president of Howard University and the sixth African American to serve as its chief executive officer. Since taking office in August 2008, Ribeau has initiated a comprehensive academic renewal for all 170 plus programs; initiated $150 million facilities renewal initiative; improved the University’s infrastructure and business operations; expanded the university's international footprint; solidified its legacy of leadership and service; and enhanced its research capabilities, particularly in the STEM disciplines.

Before coming to Howard University, Ribeau served as the president of Bowling Green State University (BGSU) in Bowling Green, OH.  Ribeau holds a B.S. degree from Wayne State University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Interpersonal and Group Communication from the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign.  In 1976, he joined the California State University Los Angeles faculty as a professor of communication studies. He  received accolades as an outstanding instructor and student adviser, and, in 1984, he was named the chair of the university's Pan African Studies Department—a position that he held until 1987 when he was named dean of Undergraduate Studies on the university's San Bernardino campus. Three years later, Ribeau was appointed dean of the College of Liberal Arts at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo campus, and, in 1992, he was named vice president for Academic Affairs on the university's Pomona campus.

He currently serves on the board of directors for a number of additional organizations, including the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association–College Retirement Equities Fund, Worthington Industries, the Association of Governing Boards, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and the Consortium of University Presidents. He has received distinguished alumnus awards from Wayne State University and the University of Illinois; scholarly recognition from the National Communication Association; the President's Award from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and was named the 2012 Educator of the Year by the World Affairs Council.

Dr. Anand A. Yang is Golub Chair of International Studies and Director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies.  Prior to joining the University of Washington in 2002, Yang taught at the University of Utah and Sweet Briar College.  At Utah he was chair of the History Department for five years and, subsequently, Director of its Asian Studies Program for six years.  Yang is the former editor of The Journal of Asian Studies and Peasant Studies, and has been and is a member of the editorial boards of several journals in Asian Studies and in History.  He is actively engaged in world history projects at the collegiate and precollegiate levels that are aimed at enhancing our historical understanding of our contemporary world.  A member of the Board of Directors of the American Council of Learned Societies and of the Executive Committee of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, he is also active in local community organizations, including the World Affairs Council of Seattle/Tacoma.  In 2006 he will begin his term as the President of the Association for Asian Studies.