Barbara Blount Armstrong is the Director of Development for Corporations and Foundations at Morgan State University, where she leads strategic fundraising efforts and cultivates partnerships with foundations, corporations, government agencies, and community organizations. Her career in education began in the Philadelphia School District, laying the foundation for a lifelong commitment to equity, student success, and institutional advancement.

She has held educational leadership roles at the University of New Orleans, the University of California, San Diego, and San Diego Mesa College, and previously served as Vice President for Student Affairs at United States International University. Her work in workforce development includes serving as Director for Economic Development/School to Career Programs for the San Diego Community College District.

Ms. Blount Armstrong also served as Chief Operating Officer and Interim President & CEO of Associated Black Charities, where she led initiatives focused on racial equity and economic inclusion. Her civic and community leadership includes board service with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, the Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative, and the Maryland Health Care Commission’s Statewide Health Information Exchange Policy Board.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education from Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) and a Master of Education in Counseling and Guidance from Howard University. She has completed doctoral coursework in Higher Education Administration at Nova Southeastern University, Public Administration at the University of Baltimore, and has pursued doctoral studies in the College of Interdisciplinary and Continuing Studies at Morgan State University.

In 2007, she was recognized by The Daily Record as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women.

Denise Forte is the President and CEO at The Education Trust, a national advocacy organization
often described as “the most important truth teller” in American public education.
As one of the country’s leading voices on education equity, Denise is on the forefront of
engaging policymakers and diverse coalitions of advocates to advance progressive state and federal
education legislation on behalf of students of color and students from low-income backgrounds.
Her lifetime of service includes 20 years in senior congressional staff roles on Capitol Hill, and a
stint in the executive branch, serving in the Obama administration as Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary in the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development in
the Department of Education.

Denise has a B.S. in Computer Science from Duke University, and a M.A. in Women’s Studies
from the George Washington University. She lives with her family in Washington, D.C.

Marybeth Gasman is the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair in Education, a Distinguished Professor, and the Associate Dean for Research in the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University. She also serves as the Executive Director of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity & Justice and the Executive Director of the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions. Prior to joining the faculty at Rutgers, Marybeth was the Judy & Howard Berkowitz Endowed Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author or editor of 36 books, including Doing the Right Thing: How to End Systemic Racism in Faculty Hiring (Princeton University, 2022), HBCU: The Power of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), Educating a Diverse Nation (Harvard University Press, 2015 with Clif Conrad), Envisioning Black Colleges (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), Making Black Scientists (Harvard University Press, 2019 with Thai-Huy Nguyen), and her newest book Why Historically Black Colleges Matter: 25 Years of Research for Justice (Teachers College Press, 2025). Marybeth has written over 300 peer-reviewed articles, scholarly essays, and book chapters. She has penned over 850 opinion articles for the nation’s newspapers and magazines and is ranked by Education Week as one of the 20 most influential education scholars in the nation. Marybeth has raised over $26 million in grant funding to support her research and that of her students, mentees, and MSI partners. She has served on the board of trustees of The College Board as well as historically Black colleges – Paul Quinn College, Morris Brown College, and St. Augustine College. She considers her proudest accomplishment to be receiving the University of Pennsylvania’s Provost Award for Distinguished Ph.D. Teaching and Mentoring, serving as the dissertation chair for over 85 doctoral students since 2000. Marybeth is an avid photographer, loves to write, and believes balance and harmony are essential to achieving life goals.

WILLIAM E. KIRWAN, PhD – William E. “Brit” Kirwan is chancellor emeritus of the University System of Maryland (USM). He is a nationally recognized authority on critical issues facing higher education. He served as chancellor of the University System of Maryland (2002-2015), president of the Ohio State University (1998-2002), and president of the University of Maryland, College Park (1988-1998). Before his presidency, he was a member of the University of Maryland mathematics faculty for 24 years.

Dr. Kirwan is past chair of, among other boards, the American Council for Higher Education, the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, the American Association of Colleges & Universities, the Business Higher Education Forum, the National Research Council Board on Higher Education and Workforce, and the University of Maryland Medical Center. He also served as the co-chair and chair of Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics from 2004 to 2016.

In 2016, Dr. Kirwan was asked by the General Assembly and Governor Larry Hogan to chair the Commission on Innovation and Excellence, charged with developing recommendations that would enable Maryland PreK-12 schools to perform at the level of the best-performing school systems in the world. The Commission’s recommendations were encapsulated in a bill, The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future, which was enacted in 2021. This bill will lead to significant reforms in Maryland’s public school system and increase the state’s investment in its schools by more than $4 billion by the end of the
10-year implementation period. Dr. Kirwan currently serves as Vice Chair of the state’s Accountability and Implementation Board, which oversees the implementation of the Blueprint.

Among Dr. Kirwan’s many honors is the 2010 TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence. Considered one of the nation’s top higher education honors, this award recognizes outstanding leadership in higher education and contributions to the greater good. In 2009, he received the Carnegie Corporation Leadership Award, which included a $500,000 grant to support USM academic priorities, and in 2025, he was named as the recipient of the Peter McPherson Lifetime Achievement Award by the Association of Public and Land Grant Colleges.

Dr. Kirwan was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002 and inducted into the Baltimore Sun’s Maryland Business and Civic Hall of Fame in 2017. He is the recipient of both the Maryland Senate’s First Citizen Award (1998) and the Maryland House of Representatives Speaker’s Medallion (2007). He has received honorary degrees from the Ohio State University (2003), the University of Kentucky (2012), and Johns Hopkins University (2015) and has been inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame at the University of Kentucky and Rutgers University.

Dr. Kirwan received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Kentucky in 1960 and his master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, in 1962 and 1964 respectively.

Renée A. Middleton, Ph.D. is a Senior Consultant with the Arredondo Advisory Group. Dr. Middleton possesses a wide-ranging career in education and human service professions. She served 15 years as Dean of The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio (August 2006 – June of 2021). With the Arredondo Advisory Group, she facilitates leadership development and provides executive coaching to university administrators.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

• Dean Emerita of the Patton College of Education and Professor of Counselor Education, Ohio University.
• Member of the Board of Directors of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards and member of the Executive Committee and the Policy and Advocacy Committee (2013-2022).
• Served as Board Member-At-Large and elected to serve as Chair of the Board of Directors in 2018 for the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE).
• Faculty of the AACTE Leadership Academy (2013-2015) designed for education leaders navigating challenges of the global environment in colleges of education.
• Consulted with public agencies (e.g., Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services, and Food and Drug Administration) and school districts in Ohio’s rural and Appalachian counties, and urban school districts in Franklin and Cuyahoga Counties.
• In 2017, Dr. Middleton was the recipient of the Edward C. Pomeroy Award for Outstanding Contributions to teacher education, and her commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her focus in research and training has been on racial identity development.
• Received her doctoral degree from Auburn University, with a focus on Rehabilitation Administration and a minor in Rehabilitation Counseling Education

Michael Nettles is a full professor with tenure and endowed chair of predictive analytics and psychometrics at Morgan State University in Baltimore Maryland. Michael Nettles has built a national and international reputation as a researcher and scholar of education and public policy. His research and scholarly expertise include educational assessment, student performance and achievement, educational equity education finance and education data production analyses and presentation. His publications reflect his broad interest in public policy, student and faculty access, opportunity, achievement, and assessment and financing at both the K–12 and all levels of postsecondary levels. For eighteen years (2005-2023) Michael Nettles was the senior vice president for Policy Evaluation and Research at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, New Jersey, and for eleven years prior to that, as full professor with tenure at the University of Michigan (1992-2003) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As Vice President for Assessment at he University of Tennessee, Michael Nettles was the first University Vice President for Assessment in the United States of America.

In August 2014 President Barack Obama appointed Nettles to the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. He was appointed by two US Secretaries of Education to serve on the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which oversees and develops policies for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). He also served for eight years on both the College Board of Trustees and the GRE Board and immediate past chair of the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) Board of Trustees. In 2025 Michael Nettles is a member of the advisory council of the Buros Center for Testing.

Tim Shriver is husband, father, educator, best-selling author, Chairman of Special Olympics and Chairman of UNITE.

As Chairman of Special Olympics, a global movement to end discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities, Tim has driven the largest expansion of the organization in its history—growing the movement from one million athletes to over six million athletes in more than 170 countries around the world.

As he passed the CEO torch in the past few years, he began asking questions like, “How could the example and spirit of the athletes of Special Olympics provide a model for a divided world?” and “How could SEL skills like empathy, self-awareness, and perspective-taking help our whole nation?”

Hundreds of young people, faith leaders, educators, philosophers, scientists, activists and political figures have joined the conversation. Together, they concluded that in spite of the divides, the world is hungry to be reminded of its common humanity.

As Chairman of UNITE, a non-profit that also emerged from this exploration, he has helped to pioneer the Dignity Index—a new tool to help Americans disagree without demonizing each other—and catalyze dozens of moonshots that unite Americans in common purpose to tackle our country’s most intractable challenges.

Shriver earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University, a Master’s degree from Catholic University, and a Doctorate in Education from the University of Connecticut. Before joining Special Olympics in 1996, Shriver co-founded and currently chairs the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the leading school reform organization in the field of social and emotional learning (SEL).

Shriver also has a record of harnessing the power of Hollywood to spread hope and connection across differences as the executive producer of several films — including Amistad, The Loretta Claiborne Story, The Ringer, Front of the Class, As Far as They Can Run and The Peanut Butter Falcon. He is the author of the NYT bestseller Fully Alive – Discovering What Matters Most, and co-editor of The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening.

Daphne C. Watkins, PhD, EMBA, holds multiple appointments at the University of Michigan, such as the Letha A. Chadiha Collegiate Professor of Social Work, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor, and Faculty Associate at the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the Institute for Social Research. For more than 20 years, she has studied behavioral health interventions for historically marginalized groups and mixed methods approaches to research in context. Her previous research has focused on developing evidence-based strategies to improve the physical and mental health of underrepresented groups at the intersection of age, culture, and gender. Dr. Watkins has held multiple leadership positions, both domestically and internationally, across several social impact, philanthropic, and academic organizations. Her influence extends beyond the United States, as she has garnered an international reputation in gender and health, mixed methods research, and leadership and management worldwide.

Dr. Watkins teaches graduate-level classes in mixed methods research, social impact leadership, and organizational governance. Dr. Watkins’ reputation as a thought leader is evidenced by her selection as a recipient of the 2024 Pynn-Silverman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Textbook & Academic Authors Association; the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Top 2% of Scientists Worldwide; the 2019 Thought Leadership Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and the 2018 Outstanding Alumni Award from Texas A&M University College of Education and Human Development. Her unique ability to bridge academic rigor with practical leadership solutions has established her as a sought-after advisor for organizations seeking evidence-based approaches to equity initiatives, social impact, and leadership development. Dr. Watkins holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, a Ph.D. from Texas A&M University, and an Executive MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology. She is a certified executive coach and has a Distinguished Leader Executive Certificate from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.