Florida Institute of Technology

Faculty Summer Institute - Past Speakers

Dr. Burks Oakley II, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
University of Illinois
Burks Oakley II is an Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Illinois . His areas of interest include distance education, outreach, and instructional technologies on all three campuses of the University of Illinois ( Chicago , Springfield , Urbana-Champaign ). Oakley also holds appointments as a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in the Departments of Computer Science and Management Information Systems at the University of Illinois at Springfield, and in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the School of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Through his innovative use of technology in teaching, Professor Oakley has earned a national reputation as a practitioner and promoter of Internet-based asynchronous learning environments. In the past two years, he has given more than one hundred invited talks at national conferences and on university campuses. He continues to inspire faculty and administrators as director of the University of Illinois Online initiative, a program designed to facilitate the development and delivery of University of Illinois courses, degrees, and public service resources over the Internet. Oakley's other major projects include the Illinois Online Network and the Illinois Virtual Campus .

Oakley received his B.S. degree from Northwestern University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Michigan . He has received numerous awards for his teaching and for his innovative use of technology in education, including the Luckman Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award from UIUC in 1993, the Outstanding Teacher Award from the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) in 1993, the Educom Medal in 1996, the Educational Activities Board Major Educational Innovation Award from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1996, the Meritorious Service Award from the IEEE Education Society in 1998, and the Third Millennium Medal from the IEEE in 2000. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a Fellow of the ASEE, and a former Vice President of the ASEE.

Ms. Marlene Fleischer, Associate Director for Distance Learning
Florida Atlantic University
Marlene Fleischer is responsible for the administration and planning of distance learning activities, Instructional Design services and investigating and introducing new instructional technologies to Florida Atlantic University.

Previously, Marlene was at Daytona Beach Community College, where she was responsible for the day-to-day operation of the Interactive Television System, the On-Line/Compressed Video Dual Education Program, and training and development for faculty for ITV and online courses. Prior to DBCC, Marlene was at Old Dominion University where she produced International Teleconferences, courses and mini-courses for National Technological University.

Marlene is a graduate of Duquesne University with a BA in Journalism and earned her MS in Communications from Temple University. She has done post-graduate work at NYU, Adelphia University and Old Dominion University. She has consulted with many schools and corporations in the US and Canada and published and presented numerous papers on Distance Education.

Dr. Richard Lyons
Faculty Development Associates
An educator since 1975, Dr. Lyons has been deeply grounded in sound faculty development practices through extensive research and a wide range of rich professional experiences.

Entering higher education as an adjunct instructor of management at Western Kentucky University, he has since served as a full-time faculty member, department chair, and instructional dean at a renowned Florida institution. Influenced greatly in his teaching and management responsibilities by his training in the quality principles of W. Edwards Deming, he began to apply this approach to faculty effectiveness in the late 1980's.

Beginning in 1993, much of his doctoral research focused on a number of aspects of this issue, including the impact of adjunct faculty performance on institutional effectiveness. His dissertation focused on mentoring of adjunct instructors, and its conclusions proposed a comprehensive, yet low-cost program for developing their classroom effectiveness. He subsequently installed that program in 1996 - expanding it to include new full-time faculty from non-education backgrounds - and steadily refined it since.

Dr. Kathy Cobb, Virtual Campus President

Brevard Community College
Dr. Katherine M. Cobb is the President of Brevard Community College's fifth and fastest growing campus, the Virtual Campus. Dr. Cobb also serves as an adjunct instructor for the Virtual Campus teaching courses in Legal Assisting and she is responsible for the oversight and operation of WBCC-TV, a local PBS educational station

Dr. Cobb is a graduate of Stetson University and Stetson College of Law. Prior to working for BCC, Kathy was a practicing attorney in Brevard County for ten years. Her areas of specialty included Estate Planning and Bankruptcy and she continues to teach these and other courses at BCC. Dr. Cobb is known as a "pioneer" in distance education at BCC as she was one of the first instructors to teach online beginning in 1995. Dr. Cobb is responsible for developing the entire AS degree in Legal Assisting for online delivery and she has also personally produced three telecourses which are broadcast on WBCC-TV.

Dr. Cobb sits on the Florida Community College Distance Learning Consortium and the PBS TeacherLine project with Brevard County Schools. As Project Director for a FIPSE grant called Project Ole' (Online Learning Excellence) Dr. Cobb has worked with faculty and staff around the country to develop strategies to improve student retention in online courses. Over the last few years Katherine has been invited to speak across the country on various topics in distance education, the most recent being a lecture on the Distance Learning Financial Aid Demonstration Project at the 2003 TeleLearning Conference.