Plenary Sessions

Timothy K. Eatman, Ph.D., an educational sociologist and publicly engaged scholar, serves as the Inaugural Dean of the Honors Living-Learning Community and Professor of Urban Education at Rutgers University-Newark. Prior to this current appointment, his primary network of scholarly operation and leadership was with the national consortium Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life serving as Faculty Co-Director. He currently serves as national co-chair of the Urban Research-Based Action and chair emeritus of the International Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE) board. Tim is in his second term on the board of directors of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) currently serving as Chair of the membership committee and as vice-chair of the board for the 2022 –2023 term. Also, with AAC&U, Tim is as a faculty member of the Institute on High Impact Practices for Student Success (HIPS). Tim is a widely sought-after speaker, workshop facilitator, and collaborator who has earned local, national, and international recognition for his leadership in advancing understandings about the multi-faceted impact of publicly engaged scholarship in the university of the 21st century.

Angela Thi Bennett is the first-ever digital equity director at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) within the US Department of Commerce. NTIA is the agency responsible for advising the President of the United States on telecommunications and information policy issues. Currently, NTIA strongly focuses on expanding broadband access and adoption and advancing digital equity. This is the first-ever position in the federal government with “digital equity” in the job title. Starting this role in March 2022, Ms. Bennett has been charged to direct the allocation of $2.75 billion from the Digital Equity Act and help develop guidelines for states to equitably use these funds. Before serving in this role, Ms. Bennett was the director of advocacy at DigitalC, focused on digital inclusion in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cate Denial is the Bright Distinguished Professor of American History, Chair of the History department, and Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. A Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians, Dr. Denial is the winner of the American Historical Association’s 2018 Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching award, and a former member of the Digital Public Library of America‘s Educational Advisory Board. In the summer of 2018, Cate was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, PA. As Director of the Bright Institute at Knox College, Cate oversees a program that supports fourteen faculty from liberal arts schools across the United States in their teaching and research for three years while providing them with $9000 in research funds and convening an annual summer seminar. Cate is the PI on a $150,000 grant awarded to Knox College by the Mellon Foundation in July 2022, bringing together thirty-six participants from across higher education in the United States to explore “Pedagogies, Communities, and Practices of Care in the Academy After COVID-19.” Dr. Denial is at work on a new book, A Pedagogy of Kindness, under contract with West Virginia University Press.

James M. Lang, Ph.D., is a former English Professor and founding director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University. He is the author of six books, the most recent of which are Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It (Basic Books, 2020), Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning (Jossey-Bass, 2nded., 2021) and Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (Harvard University Press, 2013), and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching (Harvard UP, 2008). Jim writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education; his work has been appearing in the Chronicle since 1999. His book reviews and public scholarship on higher education have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and Time. He edits a series of books on teaching and learning in higher education for West Virginia University Press.