SESSION SPEAKERS

OPENING SESSION SPEAKER

Jeffrey Selingo

Washington Post Columnist and Author

About

Jeffrey J. Selingo is a best-selling author and award-winning columnist who helps parents and higher-education leaders imagine the college and university of the future and how to succeed in a fast-changing economy. His latest book, There Is Life After College (HarperCollins), explores how today’s young adults need to navigate school for the job market of tomorrow.

Jeff is also the author of College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students, a New York Times bestselling education book in 2013, and MOOC U: Who Is Getting the Most Out of Online Education and Why.

A regular contributor to the Washington Post, Jeff is a special advisor and professor of practice at Arizona State University and a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities. He is the former top editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, where he worked for 16 years in a variety of reporting and editing roles.

His writing has also appeared in the New York Times, the WallStreet Journal, and Slate, and he is a contributor to LinkedIn, where you can follow his blog posts on higher education. He has appeared on ABC, CNN, PBS, and NPR. He is a senior advisor and professor of practice at Arizona State University and a visiting scholar at the Center for 21st Century Universities at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Jeff’s work has been honored with awards from the Education Writers Association, Society of Professional Journalists, and the Associated Press. He has been the keynote speaker before dozens of associations and universities and appears regularly on regional and national radio and television programs.

Jeff received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ithaca College and a master’s degree in government from the Johns Hopkins University. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

CLOSING AWARDS LUNCHEON SPEAKER

Dr. Jackson Sasser

President, Santa Fe College

About

Dr. Jackson N. Sasser is president of Santa Fe College, named the nation’s number one community college by the Aspen Institute for 2015-2016. He is one of the first in the country to define community colleges as essential to national economic security because they educate knowledge workers necessary for American business and industry to succeed globally. The College has prepared students and workers by adding bachelor’s degree programs to fulfill unmet needs locally and statewide and by weaving world perspectives into all academic and support programs. 

Through his leadership in Innovation Gainesville, the college quickly educates the skilled workers for new and growing companies to prosper. He was inducted into Florida Blue Key last year.  His board participation supports economic development and includes the state Florida Chamber of Commerce, the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce, Santa Fe Health Care, and the University of Florida’s Curtis M. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. He conducted post-graduate work at Harvard University and upon invitation participated in the Oxford, England Round Table on higher education.