Speaker biographies
Judith Eaton is president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. She previously served as chancellor of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, in which capacity she was responsible for thirty-two institutions and over 160,000 students. She previously served as president of the Council for Aid to Education, the Community College of Philadelphia, and the Community College of Southern Nevada. Ms. Eaton currently serves on eleven different boards and is the author of numerous books and articles on a range of higher education and accreditation issues.
William D. Henderson is an associate professor at Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington, where he teaches courses on business law and the economics and structure of the legal profession. Mr. Henderson’s research focuses on empirical analysis of the legal profession and legal education, including the dynamics that surround the annual U.S. News & World Report law school rankings. His published work includes articles in the North Carolina Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, the Texas Law Review, and the Michigan Law Review. Mr. Henderson is also a research associate with the Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE) and director of the Law Firms Working Group, a joint initiative of Indiana University School of Law and the American Bar Foundation. He also regularly contributes to the Empirical Legal Studies blog.
Charles Miller was chairman of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education in 2005–06. He is the former chairman of the University of Texas System Board of Regents. During his tenure as chairman, Mr. Miller took the lead in developing better higher education accountability systems matched with deregulation and institutional autonomy. He also fostered strategies to increase significantly research funding, enrollment, patient care, private contributions, and tuition revenues, all while increasing financial aid. Mr. Miller served as chairman of the Texas Education Policy Center, which designed Texas’s public school accountability system. He also served as chairman of the education committee of the Governor’s Business Council during George W. Bush’s governorship and was a member of the Bush-Cheney transition team. Mr. Miller is chairman emeritus of the board of directors of the Greater Houston Partnership. He has been active in civic, business, and educational organizations.
Anne D. Neal is the president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a national education nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, excellence, and accountability. She is a lawyer and served as president of the Harvard Journal on Legislation while in law school. Ms. Neal has served as general counsel of the National Endowment for the Humanities and as a First Amendment and communications lawyer with Rogers & Wells and Wiley, Rein & Fielding.
Candace de Russy is a nationally recognized writer and lecturer on education and cultural issues. She focuses on raising academic standards, strengthening general education, promoting school choice, and bringing accountability and efficiency to the academy. She was a member of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy (2002–05), a trustee of the State University of New York (1995–2007), and a regent of Ave Maria University, whose board she has chaired since 2006. In 2004, Ms. de Russy was named an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., where she focuses on governance, strategic planning, assessment, accountability, funding, and other issues in higher education. In 2007, she became a senior research fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and a contributing editor of Family Security Matters.
Arthur J. Rothkopf is the senior vice president and counselor to the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where his responsibilities include supervision of the Chamber’s Education and Workforce Initiative and the activities of the Business Civic Leadership Center. Prior to joining the Chamber staff in July 2005, Mr. Rothkopf served for twelve years as president of Lafayette College. Mr. Rothkopf was also a member of Secretary Spellings’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education. He is a trustee of American University; president of the Pennsylvania Society; and a director of two for-profit companies, one of which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He is also past board chairman of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania.
Jeff Sandefer is an entrepreneur whose passion is teaching. For the last seventeen years, he has taught entrepreneurship at the graduate level. While at the University of Texas, Mr. Sandefer was named by BusinessWeek as one of the top entrepreneurship professors in the United States. Five years ago, he and other successful entrepreneurs left the nationally recognized program they had built at the University of Texas to start the Acton School of Business. He also has served for over a decade on Harvard University’s Visiting Committee. Mr. Sandefer is a director of National Review magazine and a member of the Mont Pelerin Society. He formerly served as chairman of the Acton Institute of Religion and Liberty and served on Texas governor Rick Perry’s 21st Century Commission on Higher Education. In 2006, he was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
Sara Martinez Tucker is the under secretary of education. As under secretary, she is the top higher education official at the Department and oversees all policies, programs, and activities related to postsecondary education, vocational and adult education, and federal student aid. She is also working towards expanding the accessibility, affordability, and accountability of postsecondary education. Prior to joining the department, Tucker worked for nine years as CEO and president of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, where she pursued an aggressive goal to double the rate of Hispanics earning college degrees by 2010. She has served on many boards and committees, including Toyota’s Diversity Advisory Board, and the boards of the National Center for Educational Accountability and the National Scholarship Providers Association. Tucker was named Hispanic of the Year in 2000 by Hispanic magazine, and, in 2005, Time magazine named her one of the twenty-five most influential Hispanics in the United States.
Richard Vedder is a visiting scholar at AEI, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and a distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University. Mr. Vedder is the author of eight books and monographs and over two hundred scholarly papers on a variety of topics in economic history, labor economics, and budget policy. His books include Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America, with Lowell Gallaway (New York University Press, 1997); and Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much (AEI Press, 2004). His newest book, coauthored with Wendell Cox, is The Wal-Mart Revolution: How Big-Box Stores Benefit Consumers, Workers, and the Economy (AEI Press, 2006). In 2005–06, he served on Secretary Spellings’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education.
View Event Details
