REGISTER

PANELISTS

Ruth Johnston
Vice President of NACUBO Consulting

Ruth Johnston, Ph.D., currently serves as vice president of NACUBO Consulting. Prior to this, Ruth served as the system vice chancellor and chief operating officer at New Mexico State University. Her leadership centered on system-wide strategy, customer service, operational excellence and continuous improvement. Most of Ruth’s career was at the University of Washington, and her last position was vice chancellor for planning & administration at the Bothell camps. She led the development of a hybrid budget model based on responsibility-centered management principles. She served at the main UW campus, where she held the position of associate vice president/provost for many years. Ruth holds a doctorate in organizational development and higher education, a master's degree in human relations and a bachelor's in counseling psychology/social sciences. Ruth served as president of the Western Association of College & University Business Officers' board of directors and actively contributed to the National Association of College & University Business Officers' board for three years.

Robert Kelchen
Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Robert Kelchen, Ph.D., is a professor of higher education and the head of the department of educational leadership and policy studies at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His research interests include higher education finance, accountability policies and student financial aid. Kelchen is the author of Higher Education Accountability (Johns Hopkins University Press) and regularly publishes in top education journals. He has received the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award for excellence in financial aid research from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Kelchen holds a Ph.D. in educational policy studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Colleen Flaherty
Senior Editor of Special Content at Inside Higher Ed

Colleen Flaherty, senior editor of special content, previously served as Student Voice editor for Inside Higher Ed. Prior to joining the publication in 2012, Colleen was military editor at the Killeen Daily Herald, outside Fort Hood, Texas. Before that, she covered government and land use issues for the Greenwich Time and Hersam Acorn Newspapers in her home state of Connecticut. After graduating from McGill University in Montreal with a degree in English literature, Colleen taught English and English as a second language in public schools in the Bronx, New York. She earned her M.S.Ed. from City University of New York Lehman College as part of the New York City Teaching Fellows program.