2009 ELMI Faculty

Each year, the Institute brings back a core faculty who have the strongest evaluations and bring a specific contribution to the program. For 2009, members of the faculty are:

Steve Garcia is currently the Vice President for Administration at Sacramento State University. His career reflects a remarkable ability to succeed in very different kinds of educational institutions and within the fluctuating fortunes of higher education budgets and administrative pressures. In chronological order, Steve has held senior positions in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the University of California at Irvine, the Pima Community College District (Tucson, Arizona), California State University San Marcos, and now at Sacramento State University. Steve brings to the Institute a rich and diverse experience as a campus leader and an effective manager.

Margot Gill is the Administrative Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. She has worked in higher education for nearly thirty years and has taught at Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has worked with universities and the ministries of education in China, France, England, Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, Kenya, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Presently, she has overall responsibility for admissions, financial aid, alumni affairs, development, physical plant, and the operating budget for the largest graduate school at Harvard.

Eric Gravenberg is currently the Vice President at Merritt College in Oakland California. He has served as Systemwide Vice President for Undergraduate Education at Alliant University, a large, private, and international institution whose headquarters is in San Francisco. He has also been an Associate Vice President at California State University, Sacramento, a staff member at the California Postsecondary Education Commission, and a faculty member at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Eric specializes in improving organizational effectiveness and making strategic changes within colleges and universities.

Larry Hoover has been the Director of the Mediation Dispute Center at the University of California, Davis, and is widely recognized as very effective in conflict resolution within the turbulent environment of higher education. Larry has been among the Institute’s most popular faculty members since 1997 because he combines individual self-assessments with practical material delivered in an engaging style.

Stan Nosek is currently the Vice Chancellor for Administration at the University of California at Davis, one of the senior leaders on this campus of 34,000 students. He came to UCD in 1976 as assistant director of Residence Life and, over the next thirty-one years, has served in a wide range of positions within Student Affairs, University Relations, Human Resources, Facilities, and Business Services. Stan is a past President of the Western Association of College and University Business Officers and will assume the position of Chairman of the Board for the National Association of College and University Business Officers in July 2008.

Penny Jennings is the Associate Vice President for Faculty Affairs at California State University, Northridge. Prior to holding this position, she was a professor of Business Law at CSUN for seventeen years, and received a Bachelor’s Degree from UC Davis and a J.D. from UCLA. She has been quite active in the legal studies area and Risk and Insurance associations. Her HR specialties are employee relations and talent acquisition.

.Jeff Marsee is the President/Superintendent of the Redwoods Community College District , which covers a large area of northwestern California, from Mendocino to the Oregon border. He has more than 21 years as a vice president and vice chancellor of academic affairs and fiscal services at community colleges in Texas, New York and California. He earned a master’s degree in economics from California State University, Long Beach, and a doctorate in Community College Leadership from the University of Texas at Austin

William Pickens, the Institute’s Director since 1993, has held senior roles in universities, consulting organizations, a state coordinating agency for higher education, and one of the west coast’s largest non-profit foundations that offers both educational and social services. He has been an adjunct faculty member at UC Berkeley, teaching higher education finance and administration, and for six months was a Visiting Scholar on that campus with the Center for Studies in Higher Education. He now works full-time in the area of professional development for leaders in higher education.