Dr. Juan “Tito” Meléndez

tito-melendez2016   Dr. Meléndez Alicea has more than three decades of experience in the field of distance education. He published his first article on the subject in 1990, and a book in 1999. In 2014, he was awarded by Universidad for creating and facilitating the best MOOC in Latin America. He has presented on the topic of distance education in more than 15 countries. He was PI of the study of the theory and practice of distance education in Puerto Rico for the State Department in 2016. This study is ongoing.

Dr. Meléndez has post doctoral studies on distance education evaluation. He is an active member of the Puerto Rican Evaluation Society and author of several articles and book chapters on the subject of evaluation in distance education. He currently facilitates distance learning courses for the Department of Graduate Studies, at the College of Education, of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus.

Contact info:
Dr. Juan Meléndez Alicea
College of Education
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus
Email: juan.melendez16@upr.edu
Portal: jjmelendez.net

 

Manuel Correa, PhD.

ManuelCorrea4Professor and Academic Coordinator

 Noncredit International Program

Berkeley College

Dr. Correa joined Berkeley College in 2002 as an adjunct faculty member in the Management Department. He became a full-time faculty member in 2007, and teaches a full curriculum in management and business courses both online and onsite. He was asked to take over as Chair, Business Department, of Dover Business College, 2009 – 2011 in preparation of the re-accreditation and eventual merger with Berkeley College. He is bilingual, speaking English and Spanish.

As Coordinator of Noncredit International Programs, Dr. Correa has expanded a program in which students of European business schools come to Berkeley College to attend classes.  The program currently includes 20 colleges and universities from Europe, whose students can participate in six different curriculum’s to satisfy their study abroad requirements.

Before coming to Berkeley College, Dr. Correa spent 30 years in the business sector, with experience in the electric utilities, financial services and executive search industries. Some of his accomplishments include:

•          As Vice President of Marketing for an executive search firm, he was instrumental in quadrupling the firm’s corporate revenues in two years and in acquiring the world’s 3rd largest pharmaceutical organization as a client.

•          As Director of Corporate Planning for a financial services company in New York, he spearheaded a nationwide expansion while concurrently instituting a company wide project management system.

Contact info:

Address: Larry L. Luing School of Business, Berkeley College

12 East 41 Street

New York, NY 10017

email: mcm@berkeleycollege.edu

Ernest Gil Clary

Assistant Provost for Faculty & Academic Administration

Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Gil Clary is Assistant Provost for Faculty and Academic Administration at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania.   At Kutztown University, a public institution, he is responsible for facilitating and coordinating assessments of student learning outcomes and institutional effectiveness.  Prior to joining the University in 2009, he was a professor of psychology at St. Catherine University in St. Paul Minnesota and actively engaged in research on people’s motivations for performing volunteer work and other questions related to the not-for-profit sector.  In addition, Clary spent a year as a social psychology program director at the National Science Foundation in Arlington Virginia.

Contact info:

Phone: 610-683-4229

email: clary@kutztown.edu

Edgar Gonzalez

Edgar-Portrait-1Director of Distance Education
Center for Online Learning and Teaching Technology (COLTT)
University of Texas – Pan American (UTPA)

 Edgar Gonzalez has over fifteen years of experience in the development and implementation of distance education. Mr. Gonzalez has played a leadership role in online education, as Director of the Center for Online Learning and Teaching Technology (COLTT) at the University of Texas – Pan American, which has led to a significant increase in the number of online courses and programs as well as the number of students participating in distance education. Edgar has had the opportunity to apply his understanding in the field of online/distance education to provide leadership, service, and direction in the development and functions related to e-learning, instructional design, and instructional technology initiatives. The role of COLTT has not only been to increase the number of online courses, but to enhance the academic rigor and excellence of online courses and programs. Under Edgar’s leadership, an Online Exemplary Course Program was established at UT Pan American to ensure high quality and academic rigor of online courses; stipends are awarded to faculty to incentivize faculty participation in online education. A Quality Matters Rubric for online courses was also implemented to pursue national certification of online courses. Finally, a “Blueprinting” Process for online courses and programs has been developed to systematically incorporate quality assurance into the design and development of online courses at UT Pan American.

Contact info:

Dr. Naydeen Gonzalez-De Jesús

 gonzalez-dejesus2Vice President of Student Affairs
Bergen Community College

Dr. González- De Jesús has over 14 years of experience in higher education administration at the community college level, emphasis on student affairs, minority student engagement and completion, labor relations, industrial/organizational management, mentoring women leaders, online teaching and learning, and curriculum development.

Carlos Guevara

carlosguevaraDirector
Office of Educational Technology
Hostos Community College

An innate leader and fighter, born in Quito-Ecuador, first-generation college student, holds a BS and Master degrees in Computer Science from CUNY & NYU Poly, and is currently pursuing his doctorate degree in Instructional Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University. With over 15 years of experience in Higher Education, Carlos currently works at Hostos Community College as Director of the Office of Educational Technology; where he provides vision to strengthen and bring innovation to teaching and learning through technology. Carlos has established a successful organizational culture shift around technology adoption, implementing initiatives centered on mentoring and communities of practice. Carlos is a frequent presenter of a variety of academic technology topics in several national and international conferences. His main research areas of interest are online learning, social networking in education, and game-based learning.

Carlos has recently been elected as Chair of the Hostos HEO Organization, has also Chaired the HETS Distance Learning Task Force, and other several committees at the College. Carlos is also the President and Co-Founder of the Ecuadorian Youth Organization, which mission is to promote the intellectual growth of the Ecuadorian Youth through education. Carlos has also established the Ecuadorian Scholars Fund, which annually provides scholarships for students to continue their college education. Coming from a humble background, and facing many challenges to accomplish his goals, Carlos is convinced that the secrets for success are persistence, humbleness, creativity, and always setting the next goal in life and career.

 Contact info:

Carlos’ ePortfolio: http://hostos.digication.com/carlosguevara

Phone: 718.319.7915

Email: cguevara@hostos.cuny.edu

Ana Milena Lucumi

Ana Milena LucumiAna Milena Lucumi Orostegui tiene un bachillerato en filosofía, letras y pedagogía de la Universidad del Valle, la universidad pública de la ciudad de Cali, tercera ciudad en población de su natal Colombia. Obtuvo una maestría en Sistemas de instrucción y tecnología educativa en la Universidad del Sagrado Corazón de Puerto Rico. Es candidata doctoral en Instructional Technologies and Distance Education de Nova Southeastern University, universidad ubicada en la Florida, EU. Actualmente, desde el 2011, funge como Vicepresidenta de Efectividad y Asuntos Estudiantiles de National University College. Desarrolló el Modelo Institucional de Retención en esta institución, en un marco de desarrollo de destrezas socioemocionales y de resiliencia para propiciar la retención y la persistencia del estudiante en la vida universitaria. Escribió el himno de National University College titulado “Contra toda adversidad” como un regalo a los estudiantes graduados de NUC. El mismo se estrenó en la graduación del 2013.

Hasta mayo de 2011 fungió como Directora de Educación a Distancia del Sistema Universitario Ana G. Méndez (SUAGM), donde entre diversas experiencias a lo largo de 11 años, se destacó como co-líder en el equipo de trabajo que desarrolló el proyecto Universidad Virtual Ana G. Méndez, completando el autoestudio hasta lograr la licencia del CES, hoy CEPR y proponiendo un modelo multimedial de diseño instruccional de cursos en línea. Ha sido profesora conferenciante en las Universidades del SUAGM, Universidad Metropolitana, Universidad del Este y Universidad del Turabo, en cursos subgraduados y graduados en educación, educación y tecnología, educación de adultos, sistemas de instrucción y tecnología asistida. Sus áreas de interés en el campo de la investigación son la retención a nivel universitaria, la educación virtual, diseño instruccional, ambientes de aprendizaje inclusivos y la integración de tecnologías multimediales en los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje.

Publicó un poemario llamado Lunamar y posteriormente ha sido publicada en varias antologías de mujeres poetas del Museo Rayo de Colombia. En el año 2010 el Ministerio de Cultura de Colombia publicó el libro Antología de poetas afrocolombianas y una de las 16 poetas es Ana Milena Lucumi.

Contact info:

Teléfono: 787.780-5134 Ext. 4030 / 787-587.3440

Correo-e: alucumi@nuc.edu

Pamela Vargas-Krauser

Pamela Vargas-KrauserHETS Online Journal Chief Editor
Executive Director, Research Center
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Pamela Vargas is Executive Director of the Research Center at Kutztown University.  She had over 20 years of experience in research administration.  In her current position, she also promotes undergraduate research and works with community leaders to find opportunities for students and faculty to utilize their expertise and contribute to the community. In addition to writing her own articles for publication, Ms. Vargas has served as a reviewer and editor for several publications, including The Journal of Research Administration, the Journal of Healthcare, Science and the Humanities, and the HETS Online Journal.

Contact information:

email: pvargas@kutztown.edu