Conference Speakers

Ms. Bell-Rose specializes in high-impact social investments to promote the development of young people and their families. Her philanthropic work extends from America's inner cities and rural communities to Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Deeply committed to developing the full potential of all people, she has emphasized the needs of the underserved. Ms. Bell-Rose served as Counsel and Program Officer for Public Affairs at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where she directed legal affairs and designed philanthropic initiatives in education and public policy in the U.S. and abroad. Ms. Bell-Rose is Trustee and Board Vice President of The Barnes Foundation, Trustee of American Museum of Natural History, and Advisor to Harvard University's Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations and the Cooke Foundation's Community College Transfer Initiative Advisory Board. She serves on the Dean's Council of Harvard Law School and Harvard's University Committee on Student Excellence and Opportunity. She is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, the Contributions Council, the Business-Higher Education Forum, The Economic Club of New York and the Council on Foreign Relations where she serves on the Chairman's Advisory Council and the Membership Committee.

Ms. Bell-Rose was named one of twenty-five influential women in business by the Network Journal and is a recipient of Harvard University’s Rockefeller Fellowship. She is also the recipient of the Fay Prize from Radcliffe College, leadership awards from the Westchester Children's Association and The Links of New York City, and the National Council of Negro Women, and a congressional citation for her work on behalf of children. Recent publications include Immigration and Opportunity: Race, Ethnicity and Employment in the U.S. (co-editor, Russell Sage Press); "The Corporate Role in Developing Leaders: From the Sidelines to the Frontline," in College Board Review; "African-American High Achievers: Developing Talented Leaders," in The State of Black America; and "The Contribution of Immigrant Women," in Radcliffe Quarterly; Developing a Success Orientation" in Education Week, "Using Performance Metrics to Assess Impact," in Nonprofit Earned Income (Jossey-Bass), and "Maximizing Impact through Strategic Philanthropy," a Goldman Sachs Foundation monograph. Ms. Bell-Rose earned an A.B. with honors from Harvard College, a J.D. from Harvard Law School, and an M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government. Ms. Bell-Rose was born in Brooklyn, NY.

Nicholas C. Donohue is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. Established on July 1, 1998, the Nellie Mae Education Foundation is one of the largest charitable organizations in New England, and the largest focused exclusively on education.

Mr. Donohue was previously a Special Master at Hope High School in Providence, Rhode Island, where he was appointed to oversee implementation of the Rhode Island Commissioner of Education’s Decision and Order to reconstitute the school.

Before his role at Hope High School, Mr. Donohue served as Commissioner of Education for the state of New Hampshire, where he provided professional support and technical assistance to the State Board of Education, the Governor's office, and the Legislature on all aspects of education policy and educational improvement strategies. He was responsible for developing department-wide initiatives, such as the statewide assessment program and accountability and standards system. He also designed the state’s responses to federal education legislation and regulations.

Mr. Donohue has also served as New Hampshire’s Deputy Commissioner of Education, and as a trustee of the University System of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Community Technical College System. He has held a seat on the New Hampshire Post Secondary Education Commission, the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium Commission, and the Governor’s Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse. He was also, briefly, a member of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation’s Board of Directors.

His previous positions include Director of District and School Services for Learning Innovations, where he planned and implemented school improvement strategies, focusing on organizational and professional development; Project Director of the Boston Leadership Academy at Boston University, where he designed and delivered ongoing support and training for 16 Boston public schools as part of the School Leadership for Student Achievement Project; and Coordinator of the Citywide Educational Coalition in Boston, where he created the SchoolWorks Exchange, a resource bank and networking service for Boston public schools.

Mr. Donohue holds a M.Ed. from Harvard University School of Education, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. For more than a quarter century, he has lived in four New England states and has worked in all six, including 10 years in Greater Boston.

Ron Fairchild is the executive director of the National Center for Summer Learning and a faculty member at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. Under Mr. Fairchild’s leadership since 2002, the Center has grown from a local program serving the children of Baltimore city, to become the only national organization focused exclusively on creating opportunities for high-quality summer learning for all young people. In 2007, the Center’s efforts led to more than $14 million in public investment in summer programming for youth.

Mr. Fairchild’s strategic direction continues to drive the Center’s efforts to close the achievement gap between disadvantaged youth and their higher-income peers. Mr. Fairchild is widely recognized as an authority on the issues of summer learning loss. He has authored numerous publications and speaks regularly on research-based approaches and models of effective summer learning programs. His frequent appearances in the media include segments on NPR, CNN, NBC Nightly News, and the CBS Early Show.

Dr. Ronald F. Ferguson is a MIT-trained economist whose work over three decades has focused on economic, social and educational challenges in urban America. Issues of racial and ethnic inequality have been a central focus. He joined the faculty at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in September 1983, after teaching at Brandeis and Brown Universities.

For the past decade, Dr. Ferguson’s research has focused on racial achievement gaps, appearing in publications of the National Research Council, the Brookings Institution, the U.S. Department of Education, the Educational Research Service and various other books and journals. He is the creator and director of the Tripod Project for school improvement and the faculty co-chair and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative (AGI) at Harvard [www.agi.harvard.edu]. The AGI is a university-wide endeavor that also reaches beyond Harvard and brings together researchers, policy makers and practitioners to work on school improvement, parenting, and youth culture to help raise achievement and narrow gaps. He is the author most recently of the book, Toward Excellence with Equity: an emerging vision for closing the achievement gap, December 2007, from Harvard Education Press.

Mark J. Mitchell is the vice president for school information services at NAIS. In this role, Mark oversees the operation of the School and Student Service for Financial Aid (SSS), providing support to schools and other organizations through workshops, resource material, and consultative guidance in effective administration of financial aid programs. In addition to overseeing the SSS program, Mark has also been responsible for NAIS’s StatsOnline program, to collect, analyze, and disseminate independent school statistics, as well as developing training initiatives to broaden member use of independent school data, and with the NAIS Financing Schools Project, which includes serving as faculty for and coordinator of the NAIS/NBOA Financing Schools Institute (FSI) and related research activity.

Mark is a frequent presenter at local, state, regional, and national conferences on school financial aid issues and practices and has authored articles and chapters on education financing strategies in magazines and books. After graduating from Northwestern University (BS, Communication Studies), Mark served as assistant director of financial aid at Northwestern and later as coordinator of new student aid at Lake Forest College. Just before joining NAIS, Mark worked as an account executive for Access Group, Inc, a firm specializing in graduate education financing.

Thomas H. Parker is the Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. For nearly a decade, Mr. Parker has been committed to building diversity initiatives at Amherst College. Through his tireless efforts, students of color account for more than 38% of Amherst’s student body. Mr. Parker developed and administered Amherst’s alumni network, and its student search program. He also spearheaded the development and implementation of innovative Admissions software systems. Mr. Parker holds a Masters of Arts in Teaching in English from Harvard University.

Jay Rosner is a national admissions test expert based in the San Francisco bay area. As the Executive Director of The Princeton Review Foundation, he has developed programs jointly with such organizations as the NAACP, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, College and Graduate Horizons (serving Native American students) and the Asian Pacific Fund, and with a diverse group of universities ranging from historically black Xavier University (in New Orleans) to his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania. He specializes in providing test preparation resources to low-income and underrepresented minority students for tests such as the SAT, ACT, GMAT, GRE, MCAT and LSAT.

Jay's career has combined education and law, with an emphasis on student advocacy. In 2001 he testified as an expert witness in favor of affirmative action in the trial phase of the landmark University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case. He is the co-author of a law review article cited in several briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in the appeal of that case. For many years Jay has served as the only national pro bono legal advisor and resource to students having disputes with ETS and other testing companies. He is a testing consultant to a wide variety of groups, ranging from KIPP Schools to the National Association of (College) Basketball Coaches. Jay does over 30 presentations and workshops each year at educational conferences and programs. He has testified before state legislative committees in California, Texas, Illinois and New Jersey.

Jay is quoted regularly in print media (Time Magazine, etc.) and has appeared on panel talk shows on national public television (Uncommon Knowledge) and public radio (Michael Krasny Show in San Francisco). For his work with minority premedical students, in 2002 Jay was awarded the Howard D. Ingram, MD, Humanitarian Award by the Vines Medical Society of San Bernardino, California. Prior to becoming the executive director of The Princeton Review Foundation in 1995, Jay was General Counsel at The Princeton Review. He began working full-time at The Princeton Review in 1987. For 8 years, from 1977 to 1985, Jay ran an on-campus legal clinic, advising students at The College of New Jersey. The clinic was sponsored by the student government.

As Commongood Career’s Co-Founder and Vice President, Cassie Scarano is directly responsible for its service development and delivery. Cassie has over ten years of experience in non-profit organizations and has served as the Dean of Admissions at The Steppingstone Foundation, Director of Operations at The New Teacher Project's Massachusetts Institute for New Teachers (MINT), and Director of Summerbridge Cambridge, all non-profits dedicated to providing high quality educational opportunities to a diversity of students.

Cassie holds a master's degree in Education from Boston University, and a master's degree in Business Administration from Boston University, with a concentration in Non-Profit Management, as well as a bachelor's degree in sociology from Northwestern University. Cassie is a member of the LeadBoston Class of 2009 and an active member of the Board of Directors for Summerbridge Cambridge.

Richard Weissbourd is currently a lecturer in education at HGSE and at the Kennedy School of Government. His work focuses on vulnerability and resilience in childhood, the achievement gap, moral development, and effective schools and services for children. For several years he worked as a psychologist in community mental health centers as well as on the Annie Casey Foundation’s New Futures Project, an effort to prevent children from dropping out of school. He is a founder of several interventions for at-risk children, including ReadBoston and WriteBoston, city-wide literacy initiatives led by Mayor Menino. He is also a founder of a new pilot school, the Lee Academy that begins with children at 3 years old. With Hiro Yoshikawa, he currently leads a multi-dimensional designed to close the achievement gap by enhancing the learning experiences and emotional well-being of children from 3 years old through third grade. He has advised on the city, state and federal levels on family policy and school reform and has written for numerous scholarly and popular publications. He is the author of The Vulnerable Child: What Really Hurts America’s Children and What We Can Do About It (Addison-Wesley, 1996). His book on moral development, The Parents We Mean to Be, will be published this March (Houghton Mifflin, 2009).