Joe Cuseo, Ph. D., holds a doctoral degree in Educational Psychology and Assessment from the University of Iowa. Currently, he is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Marymount College (California) where for more than 25 years he directed the first-year seminar, a course required of all new students. He is a columnist for a bimonthly newsletter published by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience & Students in Transition, and has received the Resource Center’s “outstanding first-year advocate award.” He is also a 14-time recipient of the “faculty member of the year award” on his home campus, a student-driven award based on effective teaching and academic advising.

He has delivered over 100 campus workshops and conference presentations, and authored numerous articles and chapters on faculty development, student retention, and the first-year experience, the most recent of which is a textbook for first-year seminars or student success courses, titled: Thriving in College and Beyond: Research-Based Strategies for Academic Success & Personal Development, and a textbook on diversity, titled: Diversity & the College Experience: Research-Based Strategies for Appreciating Human Differences. Current writing projects to be published in 2010 include: Thriving in the Community College & Beyond:Strategies for Academic Success and Personal Development; The First-Year Seminar: Research-Based Guidelines for Course Design, Delivery, & Assessment; and Humanity, Diversity, and the Liberal Arts: The Foundation of a College Education for summer reading programs.

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Aaron Thompson, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. He holds a doctorate degree in sociology in the areas of Organizational Behavior/Race and Gender Relations. Previous positions he has held include: Executive Director of the Student Success Institute; Associate Vice President of Academic Affairs and University Programs; Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management; Professor of Sociology; and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.

Dr. Thompson is nationally recognized in the areas of education attainment and academic success. He has researched, taught and/or consulted in areas of diversity, leadership, ethics, multicultural families, race and ethnic relations, student success, first-year students, retention, cultural competence and organizational design throughout his personal career.

He has over 30 publications and numerous research and peer reviewed presentations. Thompson has traveled over the U.S. and has given more than 400 workshops, seminars and invited lectures in areas of race and gender diversity, living an unbiased life, overcoming obstacles to gain success, creating a school environment for academic success, cultural competence, workplace interaction, leadership, organizational goal setting, building relationships, the first-year seminar, and a variety of other topics. He has been or is a consultant to educational institutions (elementary, secondary and postsecondary), corporations, non-profit organizations, police departments, and other governmental agencies. In addition, his research has been cited in popular publications such as Cosmopolitan, Baltimore Sun, Orlando Sentinel, Tampa Tribune, and other.

His latest co-authored books are Thriving in College and Beyond: Research-Based Strategies for Academic Success and Personal Development; Diversity and the College Experience: Research-Based Strategies for Appreciating Human Differences; Focus on Success and Black Men and Divorce and three books that will be published in 2010: Thriving in the Community College & Beyond: Strategies for Academic Success and Personal Development; Humanity, Diversity, & the Liberal Arts: The Foundation of a College Education for summer reading programs, and Infusing Diversity into the College Experience.

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Michele Campagna, Ed.D. is the Director of New Student Experience at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She manages a comprehensive department that provides holistic retention initiatives to 2,200 first-year students. Her office oversees New Student and Family Orientation, first-year academic advisement, Learning Communities, first-year co-curricular programming, a peer leadership program, and the New Student Seminar. Dr. Campagna has twenty years of experience teaching various types of first-year seminar courses and directing services for students in transition at both two-year and four-year institutions.

Dr. Campagna holds an Ed.D. in Higher Education. She is the author of “New Student Experience: A Holistic and Collaborative Approach to First-Year Retention” in Exploring the Evidence: Campus-Wide Initiatives in the First College Year published by The National Resource Center on First-Year Students and Students in Transition. Dr. Campagna has presented at many statewide and national conferences on designing and implementing engagement and retention initiatives, strategic planning, assessment, and diversity.

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Julie McLaughlin has an MA in college student personnel from Eastern Michigan University. She is an academic advisor and co-chair of the First- Year Experience (FYE) Advisory Committee at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College. She assisted in creating the three FYE courses that are offered at Cincinnati State and assists in training new FYE instructors each term. Julie is a three-time House-Bruckmann Faculty Excellence Award nominee. At Cincinnati State, she is also responsible for cocreating the Athletic Advising Program that has been recognized as an exemplary practice by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) and contributed to the NACADA monograph titled Advising Student-Athletes: A Collaborative Approach to Success.