Nancy is Special Consultant, AACRAO – International Education Service. Nancy Katz has been active in the field of international education for over twenty years in both academic university settings as well as credential evaluation services. A regular presenter at regional and national conferences, Nancy has vast experience in training individuals in the field of foreign credential evaluation and detecting altered documents. Nancy has published numerous articles and chapters on credential evaluation, including a chapter for Kaplan/Newsweek Access America’s Guide to Studying in the USA (1997), and co-author of Thailand: A Study of the Educational System of Thailand and Guide to the Academic Placement of Students in Educational Institutions in the United States (2000). Previous work experience includes the University of Michigan, Fairleigh Dickenson University in NJ, World Education Services, AACRAO - IES, and The College Board. Nancy is currently a Director of Evaluation Service, Inc.
Johnny is Director of Foreign Credentials Evaluation Services of America (FCSA), based in Austin, TX. He has 45 years’ experience in international education which includes administrative and teaching positions at two-year and four-year colleges and universities, both public and private, in the United States, Asia and the Caribbean. He has consulted with colleges, universities, government and private sector organizations, and has written or edited 33 publications and made more than 120 conference presentations in the fields of international education and student affairs. Research, conference presentations, and business and leisure travel have taken Mr. Johnson to more than 80 countries.
Jasmin is the founder, President and CEO of Academic Credentials Evaluation Institute, Inc. (ACEI) based in Los Angeles, CA. She is the author of AACRAO’s Country Guide Series Reports on Senegal (2000) and Cameroon and co-authored the 1998 publication on the system of education of Hong Kong. She was a participant in the PIER Reports on Central America (1987), Canada (1987), and the United Kingdom (1990). She has been dedicated member of AACRAO and NAFSA and chaired various Committees at these organizations. She is a frequent presenter on world education systems and the recognition of international credentials at conferences and symposia in the United States and abroad. She holds the BA in Political Science from the University of San Diego and MBA from Pepperdine University. She is currently serving as Chair on the International Education Standards Council (IESC) of AACRAO and serves as President on the Board of the Association of International Credential Evaluators, Inc. (AICE).
LesLee Clauson Eicher has been an International Credential Evaluator since her graduate-school days at the University of Maryland in the late 1980s. Although she considers herself a generalist, she has a special interest in the countries of Anglophone Africa, the German-speaking countries, the UK, and Canada.
In 2000, LesLee began a 20+-year career with AACRAO, where she evaluated international credentials, created and administered AACRAO programming, and provided training in international credential evaluation topics to colleagues at colleges and universities around the U.S. and the world. LesLee’s publications include contributions to a number of AACRAO publications, including The AACRAO International Guide: A Resource for International Education Professionals, AACRAO EDGE, AACRAO College & University, and AACRAO Connect, as well as a contribution to NAFSA’s Guide to Educational Systems Around the World.
LesLee is a co-award-winner of the 2020 IERF Sepmeyer Award for Excellence in Credential Evaluation Research. This award recognizes her research on the recognition of private higher education institutions in Anglophone Africa. She is Past President of TAICEP and currently chairs the TAICEP Governance and Finance Committee.
In her spare time at home in Tacoma, Washington, LesLee loves to cook, eat, read, travel, and garden. She also serves as President on the Board of her local branch of the American Association of University Women (AAUW).
Dr. Dennis R. Livesay is an expert in graduate enrollment management and the evolving credentialing landscape. His career prominently features a number of successful new program development activities, including broad adoption of stackable certificates and other types of alternate credentials. He is currently the dean of the College of Engineering at Wichita State University, and has served in many different academic roles, including Associate Vice President of Research and Technology Transfer, Dean of the Graduate School (both also at Wichita State), Provost Faculty Fellow, Interim Dean of the College of Computing and Informatics, Founding Director of the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology PhD program, and Founding Director of the Charlotte Research Scholars (the last four all being at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte). Dr. Livesay received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000 and started his academic career immediately thereafter at California State Polytechnic University at Pomona. Dr. Livesay is also a successful researcher, having published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles integrating physical, analytical, and computational methods to study protein family evolution. His lab was continuously funded by external grants, primarily from the National Institutes of Health and MedImmune, a large biotech company. He has been a grant reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Research Corporation, and the W.M. Keck Foundation, and has served on the editorial board of seven journals, including BMC Bioinformatics and PLOS Computational Biology, two of the top journals in his research discipline.
Known for his thought-provoking coverage and commitment to exceptional storytelling, Byron Pitts is a multiple Emmy award-winning journalist and co-anchor of ABC’s Nightline. In 2013, Pitts became an anchor and the Chief National Correspondent at ABC. Prior to working for ABC, Pitts was the Chief National Correspondent for CBS Evening News With Katie Couric. He was also CBS’s lead correspondent at Ground Zero immediately following the September 11th attacks and won an Emmy for his coverage.
A news veteran with over 20 years of experience, other major stories Pitts has covered include the war in Afghanistan, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the military buildup in Kuwait and the refugee crisis in Kosovo, to name but a few. Pitts realized a life-long goal when he was named a Contributing Correspondent to CBS’ 60 Minutes in 2009. Pitts’ many achievements are all the more extraordinary when he tells of the many obstacles he faced as a child. Raised by a single mother in a working class neighborhood in Baltimore, Pitts was illiterate until the age of twelve and had a persistent stutter. Capitalizing on his desire to play football, his mother mandated he receive B’s or above in school in order to play. With that focus, Pitts learned to read and went on to attend Ohio Wesleyan University. With the help of his roommate and a college professor, Pitts found the support and encouragement necessary to pursue a career in broadcast journalism—a field that demands excellence in writing and speaking. By staying focused, setting simple and achievable goals and finding strength in faith, Pitts overcame powerful odds. He graduated in 1982 with a BA in Journalism and Speech Communication.
Diane Auer Jones serves as principal deputy under secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. In this role, she is delegated to perform the duties of under secretary and assistant secretary for postsecondary education.
Jones’ 30-year career in science and education policy began when she became a laboratory director and biology instructor at the Community College of Baltimore County. She then moved on to hold senior leadership roles at Princeton University and the Career Education Corporation.
Jones also brings to the Department extensive experience in public policy, having served as a program director at the National Science Foundation, as a professional staff member and acting staff director for the Research Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, and as the deputy to the associate director for science at the White House Office on Science and Technology Policy. In 2006, Jones was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the U.S. Department of Education.
While serving as assistant secretary, Jones became interested in the need to expand postsecondary education options, including through apprenticeship programs. Over the next decade, she authored a number of papers about the importance of apprenticeship opportunities and served for two years as a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. In that role, she co-led a project to develop occupational frameworks for apprenticeships in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, information technology, cyber security, transportation, and other areas. Jones returned to government service in 2017 to serve as a senior policy advisor to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor, and then moved back to the Department of Education to serve as a senior policy advisor before transitioning to her current role.
Since 2013, Keith David Watenpaugh has directed an international multi-disciplinary research project to assist refugee university students and scholars fleeing the war in Syria. This project has garnered support from the Carnegie Corp. of New York, the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation.
His team developed and deployed in the Middle East, the Article 26 Backpack™ - The Universal Human Rights Tool for Academic Mobility. At its core, it provides refugee young people with a way to safely store and share with universities, scholarship agencies, credential evaluation services, and even employers their educational background, employment history, professional achievements and goals. The Backpack builds connection and inclusion.
Watenpaugh is an expert on human rights and refugees in the Middle East. He is author most recently of Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (California, 2015) - an Ahmanson Foundation Book in the Humanities. His articles appear in the American Historical Review, Perspectives on History, Social History, Journal of Human Rights, Humanity, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, and the Huffington Post. He has lived and worked in Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Armenia, Iraq and Egypt.
Watenpaugh teaches courses in Human Rights, Genocide, and Humanitarianism.
Stephanie Henning is responsible for coordinating and leading registrar and student records work across the College of Liberal Arts, the Crummer Graduate School of Business, and the Hamilton Holt School at Rollins College. Henning has 18 years of registrar experience at Grinnell College, Kalamazoo College, and most recently, Central College.
“Her broad range of experience with student record systems, federal reporting, student retention, planning, and leadership will enhance our ability to serve all of our students,” says Dr. Susan Singer, vice president of academic affairs and provost.
Henning’s work is informed by her extensive professional engagements, including serving on the faculty of the Registrar 101 training offered by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO).
Aleks Morawski is the Director of Evaluation Services at Scholaro Inc. He holds a BA degree from Marquette University and an MA degree from San Diego State University. His professional experience includes credential evaluation at private agencies, international undergraduate and graduate admissions and recruitment at major US universities, and training and consulting on various topics in international education. Aleks served on NAFSA leadership and Trainer Corps since 2009. He is also one of the co-authors of NAFSA's Managing a Successful International Admissions Office, and is the chairman of scholarship and publications for AICE, the Association of International Credential Evaluators. He is a regular presenter at local, national, and international professional conferences. Beyond credential evaluation, Aleks enjoys mentoring new professionals in international education and advising academic organizations in the United States and around the world.
Menah Pratt-Clarke is the Vice President for Strategic Affairs and Vice Provost for Inclusion and Diversity at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). She is also Professor of Education in the School of Education in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, with affiliations in Africana Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Department of Sociology.
She has more than 20 years of administrative, academic, and legal experience in higher education, with a focus on executing and coordinating large-scale strategic initiatives that promote institutional transformation. Prior to joining Virginia Tech, she had senior administrative positions and faculty positions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Vanderbilt University. As a scholar-administrator, she believes in the importance of praxis and using scholarship to inform and lead change in higher education.
With a career spanning five decades, George Takei is known around the world for his founding role in the acclaimed television series Star Trek, in which he played Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the Starship Enterprise. But George Takei's story goes where few stories have gone before. From a childhood spent with his family wrongfully imprisoned in a Japanese American Internment Camp during WWII, to becoming one of the country's leading figures in the fight for social justice, LGBTQ rights, and marriage equality—George Takei remains a powerful voice on issues ranging from politics to pop culture. In 2012, Mashable.com named Takei the #1 most-influential person on Facebook, currently with over 10 million likes and nearly 3 million followers on Twitter.
After graduating from Virginia Tech, Lauren enlisted in the U.S. Army, quickly rising to the rank of sergeant, and served 12 months in Iraq with the First Infantry Division. She has worked as a senior legislative associate for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, a legislative representative for the American Federation of Government Employees, and the director of government relations for Got Your 6. In these positions she advocated on behalf of veterans, their families, and the services and benefits provided by the VA. In recognition of her advocacy work, Lauren was named to the HillVets Top 100 in 2015 and awarded the Excellence by An Up and Coming Practitioner award from the Women in Professional Advocacy in 2016. She was also appointed to the Joint Leadership Council of Veteran Service Organizations for the Commonwealth of Virginia by Governor McAuliffe in 2016. In addition to her advocacy work, Lauren owns and operates a CrossFit gym in Northern Virginia alongside her husband.
Former Vice-President of International Education, AACRAO, Watkins has been in the field of international education for 40 years, all spent at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of AACRAO, NAFSA, and EAIE, chaired the NCAA International Student Records Committee 2002-11 and served on the AACRAO Board as Vice President for International Education 2009-12. He has been involved with the AACRAO EDGE project from its inception and is one of the members of the International Education Standards Council (IESC) which provides credential advice found in EDGE. Watkins is an expert in the field and frequently presents at AACRAO and NAFSA conferences.
Born and raised in Taiwan, Chao has lived in the United States since college. In her decade long career, Chao has held positions as an International Student Advisor, International Student and Scholar Services Specialist, and an Immigration Paralegal. Her professional expertise ranges from topics such as admission, recruitment, credential evaluation and immigration/academic advising. Since 2016, Chao has co-organized the Southern Colorado Designated School Official meeting and network that serves as an information hub/dissemination for the school officials from the Southern Colorado area.
Staci Bernhard is the Assistant Director for Global Initiatives at Florida International University’s College of Business. With more than fifteen years of experience in admissions and recruitment, Bernhard currently focuses on all aspects of international student services. She is a member of multiple organizations in the field of education, chair of the international admissions committee for AACRAO, and incoming chair for TAICEP’s professional development committee. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Master of Science in both higher education administration and global strategic communication, and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education in adult education and human resource development with a specialization in international and intercultural education at Florida International University.
Review of: Unintended Consequences of Internationalization in Higher Education: Comparative International Perspectives on the Impacts of Policy and Practice
Request LeRoy Rooker ("The FERPA Professor") as a speaker
AboutAACRAO Senior Fellow LeRoy Rooker is the nation’s leading authority on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), a comprehensive federal law that provides privacy protections for student education records. As the director of the Department of Education’s Family Policy Compliance Office (FPCO) for 21 years, he administered laws and policies designed to help protect the rights of America’s 58 million students. Mr. Rooker is well known in the postsecondary world because of his extensive outreach to the higher education community while at the Department of Education. His many appearances at state, regional, and national meetings were not to be missed sessions, and we are honored that he continues to share his expertise through AACRAO FERPA Consulting.
LeRoy Rooker is the nation's leading authority on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and is currently a Senior Fellow in AACRAO's Research & Policy Division.
Schipporeit is currently a Strategic Advisor at Stellic. She previously served as the Director of Student Records and Registration at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. She worked in Admissions and Orientation prior to joining the staff of the Records Office in 1989. Her credentials include a Bachelor’s degree in French and German and a Master’s degree in Educational Administration. During her tenure at UNK, she has survived 3 SIS implementations, 2 degree audit implementations, 4 general education curriculum overhauls and a change to the grading system. Her service in AACRAO includes being a past chair of the Professional Development and the Awards committees. She also served on the Program, State and Regional Relations and Nominations and Elections committees. In addition, she assisted in developing the initial Registrar 101 and 201 workshops and continues to present those annually to others new to the profession. She was editor and chapter author for a revised edition of Professional Development Guidelines for Registrars: A Self-Audit and contributed a chapter “Academic Policy and the Registrar” in the book Registrar’s Guide, Evolving Best Practices in Records and Registration. She also wrote three chapters for the newly released Registrar’s Basic Guide.Kimra received the AACRAO Founders Award for Leadership in 2008. She was also presented the UNK Staff Award for Excellence, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents KUDO Award, and the Division of Student Affairs Commendation.
McMillian proudly serves as Senior Corporate Counsel for Hulman & Company. The company is comprised of INDYCAR, IMS Productions, Clabber Girl and the Indianapolis Moto Speedway home of the Indianapolis 500 Mile Race. Jimmie is a graduate of Indiana University - Bloomington and the Robert McKinney Indiana University School of Law. Upon graduation from college, Jimmie served as an Indiana Supreme Court law clerk for the Honorable Justice Frank Sullivan and went on to become a Partner in the Litigation Department of Barnes & Thornburg LLP, the largest law firm in the State of Indiana and one of the top 100 law firms in the country. Jimmie is nationally recognized as a strong and consistent voice for diversity in the legal profession and increased opportunities for minority attorneys. He has served as a leader in local, state and national bar associations. Jimmie has also served on various Boards including his current Board service for the Marion County Public Defender’s Agency and Indianapolis Urban League. Jimmie has shown a tireless commitment to improve the lives of young people and motivate them to succeed despite life’s various obstacles. As a passionate motorcycle, sports car and racing enthusiast, Jimmie truly enjoys the ability to live his dream of working at the “World’s Greatest Race Track.”