Mr. Aaron has served the information and enterprise application needs of colleges and universities for over twenty years including four years as an administrator at Duke University and thirteen years with Blackboard Inc.  He is a nationally recognized expert in the Transaction Systems industry and has provided extensive strategic consulting and project management services to over 100 clients throughout the country.

As a Director in the Blackboard Consulting organization, he oversees the development of strategic solutions for a diverse set of clients.  Since the release of Blackboard Learn for Outcomes Assessment, he has led the Blackboard Learn consulting team applying his services development and project management skills, as well as his expertise in student services, to the field of educational effectiveness.  He has overseen the design and deployment of the system for dozens of clients around the world – helping to shape and transform the unique nature of assessment for our client partners.

Mr. Aaron holds Masters of Business Administration and Masters of Planning degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Dr. Kelvin Bentley over 8 years of experience leading online learning initiatives at the director and dean levels at 2- and 4-year institutions. Dr. Bentley earned a PhD from the University of Delaware in 1999 with a major area concentration in clinical psychology. He has taught at the assistant professor level and held various administrative positions including the coordinator of Louisiana's first online, Bachelor of Science program in psychology from 2001-2003 at Northwestern State University. From 2003-2005, Dr. Bentley served as the dean of general education for Baker College's online campus and from 2005-2006, he was the academic director of online and extended education for the College of Arts and Sciences at Seton Hall University.

Dr. Bentley most recently served as the director of online learning for Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for 4 years starting in 2006. He provided oversight for all credit-based, online learning strategic planning and activities that included coordinating the development of new online and hybrid courses as well as quality assurance reviews of existing courses, leading the adoption, implementation, and assessment of technologies and services used with online instructors and learners including Elluminate, CourseEval, Respondus Lockdown Browser, and ProctorU, hiring and evaluating online instructors, and collaborating with student services offices to enhance the quality of student services to online learners including online tutoring.

Dr. Bentley’s professional interests include teaching and serving as a quality assurance specialist for projects such as Quality Matters and as a reviewer of online education programs for accreditation bodies such as the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) and Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSHE).

Dr. Bentley’s most recent honors include serving on the Fulbright Specialist roster and being selected to visit the University of Antioquia in Medellin, Colombia to train a group of graduate faculty in online course design, development, and facilitation for two weeks during September 2010.

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A Strategic Consultant since 2004 Patrick has worked with over 50 institutions primarily in Europe, the Middle East and Africa on the strategic and tactical developments necessary to support the growth of innovation in learning and teaching.  Patrick brings over two decades of education, regional development, management and operations experience to his work.

During the 1990s he spent over 6 years establishing a new university in the Highlands & Islands of Scotland – the University of the Highlands & Islands (UHI).  As a member of the executive, he had overall responsibility for developing learning innovation and information services for a flagship government initiative.

Prior to his work with UHI Patrick followed a traditional academic career in Computing Science at the University of Cambridge, Lancaster University and the Robert Gordon University with research interests and teaching responsibilities in speech processing and computational linguistics, learning technology, distributed systems, and database management.

Over the years Patrick has served on various national committees such as The Scottish National Grid for Learning Committee, JISC FE Issues Think Tank, and the Learning and Teaching Committee of the Scottish Funding Council, in addition to having been a Board member of Lochaber College.

Patrick has an MBA and MPhil from the University of Cambridge, a BSc (Hons) from the University of Ulster, and is a Chartered Engineer, a Member of the Chartered Management Institute and a Chartered Member of the British Computing Society.

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Chad is a Solutions Director within Blackboard Consulting and has a strategic focus on the effective use of educational technology. Chad’s professional background is rooted in two decades of exploring how information technology and digital media can best support the creation and sharing of ideas and knowledge, and how these technologies can be applied within virtual, mobile and physical settings. He graduated from Loyola University New Orleans with a degree in communications and experience in academic computing, which he applied to roles in both advertising and healthcare. In 1992, he moved into higher education to launch a campus research data visualization and multimedia laboratory for faculty and students. Shortly thereafter, his role expanded to include support for teaching and learning, and in 1998 he became the director for instructional technology where his portfolio grew once again to include learning spaces and support for online learning.

In later years, Chad became a senior leader for a broad portfolio of campus technology services that included learning, teaching, research, scholarship, communications, collaboration, and technology support. He participated in and was Vice-Chair of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee, was a subject matter expert and consultant on learning technology and learning spaces for DEGW North America and DEGW Europe, served on the international advisory board of CLARIN project within the European Union, and co-led and was co-PI on the Bamboo Planning Project, a multi-year global cyber infrastructure design effort for the arts and humanities funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Prior to joining Blackboard, Chad served as the Assistant Chief Information Technology Officer and Executive Director for Campus & Academic Services at the University of Chicago.

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PENDING Chad is a Solutions Director within Blackboard Consulting and has a strategic focus on the effective use of educational technology. Chad’s professional background is rooted in two decades of exploring how information technology and digital media can best support the creation and sharing of ideas and knowledge, and how these technologies can be applied within virtual, mobile and physical settings. He graduated from Loyola University New Orleans with a degree in communications and experience in academic computing, which he applied to roles in both advertising and healthcare. In 1992, he moved into higher education to launch a campus research data visualization and multimedia laboratory for faculty and students. Shortly thereafter, his role expanded to include support for teaching and learning, and in 1998 he became the director for instructional technology where his portfolio grew once again to include learning spaces and support for online learning.

In later years, Chad became a senior leader for a broad portfolio of campus technology services that included learning, teaching, research, scholarship, communications, collaboration, and technology support. He participated in and was Vice-Chair of the IEEE Learning Technology Standards Committee, was a subject matter expert and consultant on learning technology and learning spaces for DEGW North America and DEGW Europe, served on the international advisory board of CLARIN project within the European Union, and co-led and was co-PI on the Bamboo Planning Project, a multi-year global cyber infrastructure design effort for the arts and humanities funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Prior to joining Blackboard, Chad served as the Assistant Chief Information Technology Officer and Executive Director for Campus & Academic Services at the University of Chicago.

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Jeff Rabey comes to Blackboard with nine years experience in Higher Education with six of those years focused in online education.  Most recently, Dr. Rabey served as Dean of Social Sciences and Online Education. As Dean, Jeff oversaw substantial growth in online education and implemented a successful hybrid/blended course initiative.  Jeff also served on the governing body for the Iowa Community College Online Consortium.

Prior to entering the higher education field, Jeff served as coordinator of pediatric education at a children’s hospital in the Midwest.  Jeff also delivered distance education on the effective use data to public health officials through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Jeff received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degree from the University of Iowa and completed his Doctorate in High Education Administration from Iowa State University.

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Dr. Yoshino possesses a broad range of education administration experience including college and university finance, outcomes assessment, accreditation review, and diversity development. Currently, she provides consulting services to academic institutions in the area of educational and institutional effectiveness, outcomes assessment, and other areas of educational planning and improvement.

With over twenty-two years experience as a college administrator, she has served on numerous accreditation teams in public and private institutions and contributed to educational policy at the regional and national level. Karen’s prior professional roles include Executive Director for the SAT at The College Board, Director of Institutional Assessment at Occidental College, and over eighteen years as a college business officer at Harvey Mudd College including service as the Executive Assistant to the President.

Karen holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in Education from the Claremont Graduate University where her dissertation focused on leadership in U.S. higher education. She was a visiting scholar at New York University in 2006, serves as an accreditation team member for the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and chairs the Board Academic Affairs Committee at LaRoche College in Pittsburgh, PA.

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