"The State of Higher Education and the Pandemic Response"
VALERIE MARTIN CONLEY, PhD is dean of the College of Education and professor of leadership, research, and foundations. She has written extensively about faculty careers, retirement and benefits. Her book, The Faculty Factor: Reassessing the American Academy in a Turbulent Era, was published by The Johns Hopkins University Press in 2016. She is an active researcher and has been the Principal Investigator on several grants and contracts, including a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study women teaching engineering-related disciplines at community colleges.
Currently, she serves as Co-PI for an NSF Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate project, Collaborative Research: The AGEP Engineering Alliance: A Model to Advance Historically Underrepresented Minority Postdoctoral Scholars and Early Career Faculty in Engineering.
As past chair of the Colorado Council of Deans of Education, Dr. Conley provided leadership for engaging with Senator Todd on Senate Bill 19-190, focused on providing teacher preparation program support.
The UCCS College of Education is the third largest educator preparation provider in Colorado, authorized by the state of Colorado to offer educator preparation and school counseling programs, and accredited by CAEP - the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation and by CACREP - the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Programs. UCCS is one of only two CAEP accredited institutions in the state of Colorado.
Dr. Conley’s reputation as an exceptional scholar and teacher who is skilled at putting research into policy and practice derives from her career in institutional research, and in private industry as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. Dr. Conley served on the Board of Directors for the Association for Institutional Research and chaired the Higher Education Data Policy Committee, during which time she provided leadership for training and for communicating changes to colleges and universities nationwide regarding requirements for reporting data to the federal government as part of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
Before joining the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Dean Conley served as professor and chair of the department of Counseling and Higher Education, director of the Center for Higher Education, and as program coordinator for the Higher Education and Student Affairs program area in The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education at Ohio University. She holds among her most notable accomplishments being named the Ohio University Outstanding Graduate Faculty Member—an award given by graduate students to recognize an individual professor who has made a difference in their lives.
RANDY STILES retired as the Senior Military Professor of Aeronautics and Director of the Center for Educational Excellence at the USAF Academy in 1999 after a 30 year-career in the Air Force. Other Air Force assignments included the Electronic Systems Division of Systems Command, the Air Force Propulsion Laboratory, and Air Force Space Command Headquarters. He has spent the last 20 years serving as a member of the senior staffs at Colorado College and Grinnell College in Iowa where he specialized as leader in IT services, Institutional Research and a wide range of special projects. He has also served as a Consultant-evaluator, Peer Reviewer and Student Success Academy mentor for the Higher Learning Commission, the largest regional higher-education accrediting agency based in the United States. During this time, he has consulted for more than 30 colleges and universities in the United States and abroad.
Randy earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of Illinois, an MBA from Northeastern University, and a Ph.D. in Aeronautical Engineering from Purdue University. He is an American Council on Education Fellow and co-author of an award-winning textbook on aircraft design.
Randy and his wife Jeanne, a retired District 20 music teacher, are long-time residents of Colorado Springs. Their son and daughter are both graduates of Air Academy High School who have brought to their family an Ecuadorian son-in-law, a German daughter-in-law, and five always well-behaved grandchildren.