Robert Zemsky, chair of the Learning Alliance for Higher Education, a strategic coalition of individuals and organizations offering expertise to college and university leaders, will be on campus Feb. 22 for an open dialogue with the NAU community that will address the current scene in higher education.
Zemsky is the third guest in President Haeger’s Speakers Series. His presentation, titled “Higher Education in the 21st Century,” will begin at 3:30 p.m. in the Ashurst Auditorium. A reception will follow.
In addition to his work with the Learning Alliance for Higher Education, Zemsky is also the founding director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Research on Higher Education, a public policy center specializing in educational research and analysis.
Much of Zemsky’s best known writing, including “The Lattice and the Ratchet” and “To Dance with Change” has appeared in Policy Perspectives. He is also a frequent contributor to Change magazine, which named him as one of higher education’s top 40 leaders in 1998 for his role as an agenda-setter.
In his research, Zemsky pioneered the use of market analyses for higher education and is currently directing the University of Pennsylvania/Thomson Corporation Weatherstation Project that is mapping the market for e-learning. Zemsky has also served as co-director of the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce and is a senior scholar with the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement.
A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Zemsky was a postdoctoral Social Science Research Council Fellow in linguistics and was later chair of that council’s Committee on Social Science Personnel. In 1998 he received a doctor of humane letters from Towson University.
He is currently a trustee of Franklin and Marshall College and a member of the national advisory board for the National Survey of Student Engagement.