David Wiley

Change Isn't Necessary, Because Survival Isn't Mandatory

Dr. David Wiley is a pioneer of the open content movement, continually questioning, testing and innovating our models for sharing knowledge. His career is dedicated to increasing access to educational opportunity for everyone around the world. To this end, David has founded and influenced many of the projects and organizations forwarding the open education movement. He created and acted as the Director of the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning at Utah State University to define a cost-effective approach to develop open educational content.  He is the Chief Openness Officer of Flat World Knowledge, a company developing open textbooks for higher education. David is Founder and board member of the Open High School of Utah, an online high school that uses only open educational resources in its curriculum. David also created the Open Education Conference that annually convenes hundreds of open education innovators. Each of these initiatives has created new models and new content that are being replicated, shared and reused around the globe.

David is an Associate Professor of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University. He has been a Nonresident Fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, a Visiting Scholar at the Open University of the Netherlands, and a recipient of the US National Science Foundation's CAREER grant. David is also the Founder of OpenContent.org and was recently named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company magazine. He lives in Utah with his wife, Elaine, and their five children.

Bill George

Leading Through Crisis

Bill George is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, where he has taught leadership since 2004. He is the author of three best-selling books True North, Finding Your True North, and Authentic Leadership.

Mr. George is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Medtronic. He joined Medtronic in 1989 as President and Chief Operating Officer, was Chief Executive Officer from 1991-2001, and Chairman of the Board from 1996 to 2002. Under his leadership, Medtronic's market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion,
averaging 35% per year. Earlier in his career, he was an executive with Honeywell and Litton Industries and served in the U.S. Department of Defense.

Mr. George currently serves as a director of ExxonMobil and Goldman Sachs, and also recently served on the board of Target Corporation. He is also currently a trustee of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, World Economic Forum USA and the Guthrie Theater. He has served as chair of the board chair of Allina Health System, Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, United Way of the Greater Twin Cities, and Advamed. He has been named one of "Top 25 Business Leaders of the Past 25 Years" by PBS; "Executive of the Year-2001" by the Academy of Management; and "Director of the Year-2001-02" by the National Association of Corporate Directors. Mr. George has made frequent appearances on television and radio, including: The Charlie
Rose Show, The Today Show, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, NOW, CNBC, Bloomberg News, and NPR. His articles have appeared in Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, and numerous other publications.

Mr. George received his BSIE with high honors from Georgia Tech, his MBA with high distinction from Harvard University, where he was a Baker Scholar, and honorary PhDs from Georgia Tech and Bryant University. During 2002-03 he was professor at IMD International and Ecole Polytechnique in Lausanne, Switzerland, and executive-in-residence at Yale School of Management.

He and his wife Penny reside in Minnesota. They have two sons: Jeff George, who lives in Munich, Germany with his wife Renee Will and daughter Dylan; and Jon George, MD, who lives in San Francisco with his wife Jeannette Lager, MD, and son Freeman.

Bill George will be signing his book at the Conference

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology

Northern Alberta Institute of Technology

Sarita E. Brown

Tapping the Potential of America’s Latino Populations

Sarita E. Brown is President of Excelencia in Education, a 501(c) 3 organization working to accelerate Latino success in higher education by linking research, policy, and practice to serve Latino students. She has spent more than two decades at prominent national educational institutions and at the highest levels of government working to implement effective strategies to raise academic achievement and opportunity for low-income and minority students. She started her career at the University of Texas at Austin by building a national model promoting minority success in graduate education. Coming to the nation’s capital in 1993 to work for educational associations, Ms. Brown was appointed as Executive Director of the White House Initiative for Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans under President Bill Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. Maintaining her commitment to improving the quality of education, Ms. Brown applied her talents and experience to the not-for-profit sector and in 2004, co-founded Excelencia in Education.

Ms. Brown is active in national educational organizations and currently serves on the Board of Directors for ACT Inc., the National College Access Network (NCAN) and on advisory boards for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, and the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education. In January 2009, Governor Timothy M. Kaine appointed her to the Board of Visitors for Old Dominion University.

An outstanding public speaker, Ms Brown travels throughout the country to advocate for Latino college-going talent. Her writing on the topic includes her chapter; “Making the Next Generation Our Greatest Resource” in Latinos in the Nation’s Future (2009) edited by Henry Cisneros and published by Arte Público Press.  She holds a bachelor's of arts in ethnic studies and a bachelor's of science and master's of arts in communication from The University of Texas at Austin.  In 2009, she received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from North Carolina State University.

Joan McArthur-Blair

A Quivering Heart: Leading in Education

Dr. Joan McArthur-Blair, NSCC President, is a post-secondary educator with over 20 years experience.  She is a strong advocate for the unique work community colleges undertake in changing the lives of individuals and supporting the economic and social fabric of the province. 

Joan is Co-Chair for the Association of Canadian Community Colleges National Executive Leadership Institute for potential Vice Presidents and Board Member of the International Advisory Board for the Chair Academy which provides worldwide leadership training for post-secondary leaders.  Joan also serves on several national and international boards.