The Academy for Academic Leadership (AAL) is a collaborative of scholars, educational specialists, and consultants providing services that help academic leaders pursue educational excellence, the application of knowledge, the discovery of ideas, and the quest of lifelong learning. The AAL team strives to build long-term relationships based on superior service, mutual trust, and intellectual inspiration. The AAL team below focuses on professional development and consulting services.
Dr. Haden is the founder and President of the Academy for Academic Leadership. Since its founding in 2005, the Academy for Academic Leadership has worked with nearly 100 higher education institutions and associations through faculty development programs and consulting services. Dr. Haden's consultation and faculty development activities have included clients from dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary medicine, allied health, and medicine. Dr. Haden's areas of expertise include leadership development, organizational change, team building, strategic planning, curriculum development and the scholarship of teaching and learning. He served as Associate Executive Director and Director of the Center for Educational Policy and Research at the American Dental Education Association (ADEA). He continues to direct the ADEA Leadership Institute, a premier leadership development program in health professions education. He has served as a faculty member and advisor in the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Academic Leadership Fellows Program since its inception in 2004. Dr. Haden regularly presents to organizations on issues and trends in higher education, health professions education, and policy-related matters in higher education. In the past 10 years, he has made over 250 presentations to groups in higher education. Dr. Haden has authored or coauthored over 80 articles and monographs in educational policy. In 2006, Dr. Haden received an ADEA Presidential Citation for his contributions to dental education and the profession of dentistry.
Dr. Albino has served as president of two higher education systems, the University of Colorado, a public research university, and Alliant International University, a private nonprofit university with multiple campuses in California, Mexico and Kenya. Her higher education experience also includes service at the dean and vice-presidential levels, and she has spent more than twenty-five years as a faculty member in schools of dentistry and medicine, as well as departments of psychology and educational psychology. She received her baccalaureate and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas at Austin and the Certificate in Professional Coaching from the Zicklin School of Business of Baruch College, City University of New York. Dr. Albino's leadership has extended to community and nonprofit groups, and she has served on corporate and civic boards. She also has been an officer and served on governance groups of numerous professional organizations, including the American Psychological Association and the Federation of Psychological, Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences; the American Association for Dental Research; the American Council on Education; the National Collegiate Athletics Association; and the Society of Psychologists in Management, a group which she recently served as president. Dr. Albino's research in behavioral aspects of health and disease has been supported by the NIDCR and has resulted in numerous scientific publications and presentations. More recently, her work at the University of Colorado has focused on health disparities. At AAL, she works extensively in the areas of planning and evaluation, leadership and board development, and executive coaching.
Dr. Amyot is Interim Associate Vice Provost for Online Education, Professor, and Director, Distance Education and Faculty Development, University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), School of Dentistry. Dr. Amyot has been a full-time faculty member at UMKC since 1993, serving three years as Director of Graduate and Degree Completion Studies and five years as Director of the Division of Dental Hygiene. Dr. Amyot developed online degree programs for graduate and degree completion studies during her tenure as director. She teaches at all levels of the curriculum; predoctoral, graduate and undergraduate. Dr. Amyot's areas of expertise include educational methodologies, ethics, special issues in higher education and distance education and technology. Dr. Amyot has received numerous distinguished teaching awards from the School of Dentistry and recently was the recipient of the university wide Elmer Pierson Outstanding Teaching Award. She has published in several peer-reviewed journals (Gadbury-Amyot). Her research interests include: portfolio assessment of student competency, community-based service-learning, access to care and oral health-related quality of life. She served as Chair of the Council on Research for the American Dental Hygienists' Association for several years. Dr. Amyot served as an educational consultant for the American Dental Association Commission on Dental Accreditation for over ten years. She has held several offices in the UMKC Alumni Association and served on numerous committees throughout the university. She recently was named the recipient of the 2007 ADEA/William J. Gies Foundation Education Fellowship.
Dr. Baldwin is a university administrator, scholar, teacher in the humanities, arts, and sciences, and a world-renowned physician as well as a national leader in health care policy. He is a tenured professor and the advisor for health affairs to the Texas Tech University System. Dr. Baldwin was a dean and associate provost of Dartmouth Medical School, a professor at Harvard University, and the president and chief executive officer of the Immune Disease Institute. In addition, he served as head of surgical programs at Baylor College of Medicine and its affiliated hospitals in Houston, Texas. Dr. Baldwin was chief of surgical services at The Methodist Hospital, the largest private hospital in the world, chief of surgical services at Ben Taub Hospital, and chief at the Houston Veterans Administration Hospital. Dr. Baldwin earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude in Anthropology from Harvard University, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, and studied at Oxford University. Then at Stanford University School of Medicine, he received his M.D. and the Alumni Scholar Award. While completing internship and residency training in both internal medicine and surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, he was appointed as a Fellow at Harvard Medical School. Subsequently, Dr. Baldwin returned to Stanford University for specialized training in cardiothoracic and transplantation surgery and was later appointed head of the heart/lung transplantation program and director of the cardiovascular surgery research laboratories. He is certified by the National Board of Medical Examiners, the American Board of Internal Medicine, the American Board of Surgery, and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Dr. Baldwin has held leadership positions in many national societies including governor of the American College of Surgeons, president of the International Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons, and chair of the American College of Surgeons national educational program. He has received numerous professional and civic awards, including the Certificate of Appreciation for Outstanding Service of the American Heart Association the Veterans' National Commendation, the highest civilian award given by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The author of more than 400 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Baldwin has been invited to give more than 370 lectures on a wide variety of topics around the world and has served as a visiting professor at more than 50 universities. He serves on the editorial board of numerous scientific journals and has been editor and author of many textbooks published in America and around the world. He has spoken in many public venues as an advocate for meaningful health care reform and written extensively in The New Yorker, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, and numerous other national journals on the topics of health care reform, economics, human rights, and other areas. Dr. Baldwin has substantial and diverse business and consulting experience in biotechnology and bioengineering, intellectual property, technology transfer, pharmaceutical and device company start-ups, health insurance, banking, and non-profit organizations.
William (Bill) Clarke serves as a Senior Consultant for the Academy for Academic Leadership on corporate-related issues. Mr. Clarke started a successful career in business as an entrepreneur when he established a highly successful retail systems company that provided merchandise control systems for 90% of the major retailers in the Americas. The company trade name remains a generic brand in the retail industry. After selling the company, he became an equity partner with The Garr Consulting Group in Atlanta, the premier retail industry logistics and distribution firm. Mr. Clarke established their integrated systems practice and served as Chief Marketing Officer during a period of rapid growth that culminated with the acquisition of Garr by Deloitte Touche. He was then recruited by Ernst & Young to manage their national retail consulting practice. He managed hundreds of large scale engagements for Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial startups with a focus on strategy, business planning, systems, logistics, operations improvement and marketing. Mr. Clarke opted for early retirement but soon returned as an interim CEO for emerging and troubled companies where he positioned them for the most desirable end game. Mr. Clarke has also been on numerous corporate and advisory boards and is an advisor/mentor for several senior executives. As an avocation, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Marketing for The Ohio State University and Brenau University in Georgia. He is the author of the highly regarded book, Retirement Renaissance, on the whole life aspects of retirement planning. He co-authored a textbook on Retail Management and has researched and written numerous white papers on emerging trends and issues in business and academia. Mr. Clarke received his undergraduate degree in Marketing from the University of Dayton and an MBA from Xavier University in Cincinnati.
Dr. DePaola has held positions as Dean of three of the nation's dental schools and has also been Interim Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. In addition, Dr. DePaola has served for 10 years as President and CEO of the Forsyth Institute, which is the world's leading research institution specializing in oral diseases and disorders and their relationship to overall health and well being. Throughout his 35 year career, Dr. DePaola has provided consultation services to a wide variety of institutions of higher learning, the food and pharmaceutical industries, the dental industry, the American Dental Association, the National Institutes of Health, and private foundations. Dr. DePaola has been President of the American Dental Education Association and the American Association for Dental Research and is the only dentist who is an Honorary Member of the American Dietetic Association. He is currently President of the Santa Fe Group, which he co-founded, and Interim Academic Dean at Nova Southeastern University College of Dental Medicine. Dr. DePaola provides consultation on strategic planning, leadership, accreditation, organizational development, workforce issues, merging for mutual growth, faculty development, research grants and contracts, and nutrition education. He is a frequent invited speaker on the future of dental and health professions education and the future of science and its impact on health professions education and clinical practice.
Dr. Evans was vice president at the Association of Academic Health Centers 1998-2005. Previously, he spent 13 years at Harvard Medical School as a member of the faculty, director of the Office for Academic Careers, and Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs. In 1996-1997, Dr. Evans was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow, working for Senator Bill Frist on biomedical research, bioengineering, academic health centers, and cloning. In 1997, Dr. Evans was a Scholar-in-Residence at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), working on leadership issues with the Council of Deans. Dr. Evans has conducted numerous seminars, including the AAMC Women in Medicine early and mid-career professional development seminars, the minority faculty professional development seminar, and the executive development seminars for chairs, associate deans, and new deans. He has consulted with public and private schools, state departments of education, and numerous academic health centers on the institutional aspects of faculty development. Dr. Evans provides career development consultation to individual faculty members and organizational consultation to academic leaders. He has expertise in addressing the institutional issues connected with faculty recruitment, retention, and advancement, including those specific for women and minority faculty. His diverse experiences allow him to incorporate perspectives from the level of professional and personal issues for individual faculty to the broader organizational issues for institutions.
Lisa Heidle is an Executive Assistant at AAL. In this role, Ms. Heidle provides administrative support for the internal staff. She has worked in the field of language development for over ten years with clients from Asia, South America, and Europe. Ms. Heidle previously worked at Akina, Inc., a pharmaceutical research and development facility, where she assisted researchers and Ph.D. candidates in an editorial capacity and language development for public speaking. She is an editor and writer with publishing credits in anthologies and periodicals. Ms. Heidle also created an annual writing camp for children in the Atlanta area that encourages young people in the world of creativity and self-expression.
AAL Senior Consultant William Hendricson has been a consultant in health professions education for 38 years. He currently is Assistant Dean for Educational and Faculty Development at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) Dental School. He was Director of the Instructional Development at the University of Illinois Medical Center-Chicago from 1972 to 1978 and was an educational specialist for UTHSCSA from 1978-1998 where he directed faculty development programs including the UTHSCSA Teaching Excellence Course. He chaired the UTHSCSA Division of Educational Research and Development from 1999-2006. He has been a consultant to 160 universities, associations and the armed services, and an invited speaker at more than 200 meetings. From 1996-2005, Prof. Hendricson was principle instructor and co-director in a grantsmanship and research fellowship conducted by the American Academy of Family Practice and has been training director on 16 NIH or HRSA grants that involved educational interventions for health care providers related to arthritis, fibromyalgia, kidney disease, substance abuse, asthma, oral health, science translation into practice, homeless health services, interprofessional education, dental training for physicians, information technology, and preceptor training for community practitioners. Prof. Hendricson conducted a Master Teacher Fellowship for Emergency Medicine residency directors for American College of Emergency Physicians for 12 years. He was principle instructor in the Combined Medical Services Teaching Enrichment Program and was an instructor trainer in Pediatric Advanced Life support courses for the American Heart Association from 1987 to 2002. He has published 104 articles, monographs and chapters addressing issues in health professions education and was Associate Editor of the Journal of Dental Education from 2000-2009. Prof. Hendricson was a member of the Commission on Change and Innovation in Dental Education of the American Dental Education Association from 2005 - 2010. In 2009, Prof. Hendricson was awarded the Presidential Citation for Excellence in Dental Education by the American Dental Education Association.
Best known for his popular "Two-Year Track" columns in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Rob Jenkins has earned a national reputation as an advocate for community colleges and as an authority on two-year college issues. During his 23-year career—all spent at two-year schools—he has served as a part-time faculty member, a full-time faculty member, a department chair, an academic dean, and a program director. He is currently associate professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College, a large, multi-campus, urban/suburban community college in Atlanta. Rob holds a master's degree in writing from the University of Tennessee, and his stories, essays, and poems have appeared in a number of outlets, including The Clearing House, Southern Poetry Review, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Gwinnett Daily Post. In recent years he has also come to be in some demand as a speaker, addressing faculty, staff, and student groups on a variety of two-year and four-year college campuses around the country. Rob lives with his wife and two of their four children outside Atlanta, where he is active in his church, in the arts community, and in local youth sports programs.
AAL Financial Manager Paige Metzger has an M.B.A. and a B.S. in Marketing from Clemson University. She has worked as a Financial Analyst for four years and in the marketing field for over 10 years. Working at IBM as a Financial Analyst in the Sales and Distribution Division, she supported a staff of over 1,500 and created and managed an annual expense budget of $200M within the Software Division. She has worked for IBM Business partners as a Channels Communications Manager and Marketing Specialist where she helped design the first company website, developed databases for 500 IBM Resellers, and designed, managed and edited all marketing materials. She is knowledgeable in most aspects of business, from sales, management, manufacturing, marketing and finance to shipping and distribution. She was awarded the Bravo Award for outstanding customer support and the Merchandise Award for providing unprecedented support to the S/390 organization within IBM, one of the largest organizations within the Sales and Distribution Division. In addition to her financial management of the Academy for Academic Leadership, she is currently working part time on her own business, Metzger's Designs. She has designed and patented a diaper bag for dogs called the Pet JetSetter. While not working with AAL or on her business, her spare time is spent with her son, Reid, and her husband, Jason.
AAL Senior Consultant Dr. Paula O'Neill has served in faculty and leadership roles in health science education for more than more than 27 years. Since she began her career she has served as a medical educator and director/vice chair of multiple departments within teaching hospitals and medical schools. She is a tenured professor of Diagnostic Sciences and Associate Dean for Professional Development and Faculty Affairs at The University of Texas School of Dentistry at Houston. Dr. O'Neill has consulted with over 80 institutions worldwide and presented more than 200 invited seminars and workshops on the topics of faculty and curriculum development and evaluation; teaching and learning; developing leadership capacity; mentoring and cultural competency. She has published nationally on faculty development and educational research in peer-reviewed journals, served two terms on the Editorial Review Boards of the Journal of Dental Education and Computers in Nursing, chaired two NIH study sections and is a member of ADEA's Commission on Change and Innovation (CCI). She is a 2002 Fellow of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine Program for Women, received The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston President's Award for Mentoring Women in 2006, and was elected to membership in the statewide University of Texas Academy of Health Science Education in 2008. She has been the principal investigator for numerous educational research grants, co-director for foundation or corporate grants, and is the principal investigator for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Summer Medical and Dental Education Program and the HRSA funded Hispanic Center of Excellence.
Dr. Overman is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at UMKC School of Dentistry. Her teaching background includes oral health education and health promotion, educational methods for health professional faculty, and evidence based decision making. She currently teaches evidence based decision making methods to third year dental students and cross cultural communication to first year dental students. Her administrative responsibilities include faculty development. She brings to the program a wealth of experience in helping practitioners make the transition to their roles as new faculty. Dr. Overman received her B.S. in dental hygiene from UMKC School of Dentistry, her M.S. degree from UMKC's School of Graduate Studies, and in 2001, a doctoral degree in education policy and leadership at the University of Kansas. Her professional service has included numerous positions of national leadership including chair of the ADEA's National Dental Hygiene Directors, chair of ADEA's Council of Allied Program Directors, and American Dental Hygienist's Association Commissioner on Dental Accreditation. She is currently chair-elect of ADEA's Section on Academic Affairs as well as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Contemporary Dental Practice, the Journal of Dental Education and the Journal of Dental Hygiene.
Dr. Rodriguez serves as Vice President for Education at AAL. In this capacity he provides oversight as well as instruction to AAL's national programs in teaching and learning and leadership development. Dr. Rodriguez received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Michigan. He has worked extensively within higher education and academic health care. Prior to joining AAL, Dr. Rodriguez served as a faculty member at the Louisiana State University School of Dentistry. While there, he directed numerous courses, the Honors in Research program, and conducted research in public health and mucosal immunology. Dr. Rodriguez's expertise includes faculty development, strategic planning, curriculum reform, accreditation, and student research efforts. He has received accolades for excellence in teaching as well as for his efforts in developing and reforming curricular models of education. Dr. Rodriguez is a graduate of the ADEA Leadership Institute. He currently holds a position as a member of the national Advisory Committee to ADEA's Center for Educational Research and Policy group (CEPRAC).
AAL Consultant Dieter Schönwetter is the Associate Professor and Director of Educational Resources and Faculty Development at the University of Manitoba. His primary responsibilities are for curriculum management and mapping in the dental and dental hygiene programs, faculty development of future professoriate, graduate training, and research. His research efforts have resulted in 24 publications, 110 presentations, 29 research grants, and 14 research awards. Dr. Schönwetter's areas of specialization include: program outcome assessments and curriculum mapping, student success indicators, teaching and learning dynamics in post secondary education, future professorate and newly hired faculty social cognitions, effective teaching behaviors, client needs assessments, first-year student experience, student learning success with technology, predictors of student success, group dynamics involving teacher-student interactions, and social cognition theories.
Dr. Slocum has a nationally recognized career in academic medicine as an educator, scholar, and administrator. He was the founding Chair of Medicine at what is now the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine; Chief of the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the University of North Texas Health Science Center; and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Dean of the A.T. Still University (ATSU) Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine (KCOM). As Dean of KCOM, Dr. Slocum transformed the curriculum that was over 100 years old to a clinical presentation-based curriculum. Under his leadership KCOM established medical humanities and service-learning courses, the first of these at ATSU. He led attempts to develop interprofessional education programs with the nursing students at Truman State University. He also was instrumental in developing the first human patient simulation laboratory and in expanding the standardized patient experiences, to more realistically train osteopathic medical students. Dr. Slocum is a published author, has served on editorial boards of peer-reviewed journals, and continues to serve on the editorial board of the American Journal of Medicine. He has lectured nationally and internationally on various topics. He served in leadership positions of many professional organizations including the American College of Chest Physicians, Society of Critical Care Medicine, and the American Association of College of Osteopathic Medicine. He currently serves as President of the State of Missouri Court Appointed Special Advocates, Board of Trustees, and on the Executive Board of the Great Rivers Council of the Boy Scouts of America, covering more than thirty-five counties in Missouri. Dr. Slocum holds the designation of "Fellow" in four professional organizations. His leadership skills and accomplishments were recently recognized when the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine honored him with their highest award, the Robert A. Kistner Award.
Robert E. Smith is currently Professor of Pharmacy Practice and Assistant to the Dean for Professional Affairs at Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy. Dr. Smith served as chief pharmacist at the United States Public Health Service, Indian Health Service Hospital in Crow Agency, Montana. He later served as a faculty member at Wayne State University, College of Pharmacy and at the Creighton University School of Pharmacy. In 1989, Dr. Smith was appointed Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean at the Saint Louis College of Pharmacy where he served until 1995. Dr. Smith has completed two, one-year sabbaticals, one as administrative fellow to Robert Heaney, MD, Vice President for Health Services at Creighton University, and one as Administrative Scholar in Residence at the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). During his sabbatical at AACP, Dr. Smith designed and implemented the first (1996) AACP Institute, a 4-day conference on curricular and pedagogical change. This program is now in its 15th year. He was elected President of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy for 1999-2000 and served a three-year term on the AACP Board of Directors. He has served as a speaker and consultant at several colleges of pharmacy as well as a member of several American Council of Pharmaceutical Education site evaluation teams. In addition, he is the Director of the Academy of Leadership and Management for the American College of Clinical Pharmacy. His current teaching, speaking and scholarship interests focus on leadership, management, strategic planning, pedagogical issues and community pharmaceutical care.
George Weinstein is Managing Director at AAL. In this capacity Mr. Weinstein oversees all of AAL's professional development programs, consulting services, and website initiatives, and manages all promotion and marketing. Additionally, he provides the primary initial interface with alumni as well as current and potential clients at AAL's Atlanta office. He has over a decade of experience in administration, project management, and marketing, working for companies such as Westinghouse, Lucent Technologies, and ARRIS. He has managed global projects involving teams in the U.S., Mexico, the U.K., The Netherlands, India, and Taiwan. In recent years, he has written and edited numerous health-related articles and features, and created marketing collateral for placement in national trade publications. Mr. Weinstein is also an author with publishing credits in books and periodicals. In his spare time, he volunteers for two educational non-profits, promoting children's interest in aviation and increasing opportunities for Atlanta-area writers. He graduated from the University of Maryland with a B.A. and holds an M.B.A. from Virginia Tech as well as a Masters Certificate in project management from the Stevens Institute of Business.
Pamela Zarkowski, M.P.H., J.D.
Prof. Pamela Zarkowski is a Senior Consultant for the Academy for Academic Leadership. She also is Professor and the Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Detroit Mercy. She was most recently the Executive Associate Dean at the School of Dentistry where she served as both a faculty and administrator for more than 27 years. Prof. Zarkowski received a bachelor's degree and an M.P.H. degree in dental public health from the University of Michigan. She also received the Juris Doctor degree from Wayne State University where she was an associate editor of the Law Review. She has been a member of the Michigan bar since 1989. Prof. Zarkowski's career in dental education spans more than 29 years. She has served in various leadership roles at the School of Dentistry and the University. She continues to teach predoctoral, allied, and postdoctoral dental students in ethics, law, leadership, and community dentistry. She has also published and is a frequent speaker at regional and national meetings and continuing education courses. Prof. Zarkowski is a former President of the American Dental Education Association (2001-2002) and the American Society for Dental Ethics (2003-2006).She was also President of the Society of Executive Leadership in Medicine (SELAM) from 2007-2008. In 2001, she was inducted into the honorary society of Omicron Kappa Upsilon. In 2006 she was selected as an Honorary Fellow in the American College of Dentists.
