RON GRAY, Ph.D.
Ron Gray believes in the power of engaged students. Through collaboration and shared purpose, he champions diversity as a critical asset in teaching, learning, inquiry, and innovation. With over 25 years of dedicated service within both academic and student affairs, his experience encompasses budget management, staff supervision and development, student support and retention, fundraising, crisis management, strategic planning, and campus operations, including security, athletics, and facilities.
He has guided his institutions in securing over $3 million dollars in grants and corporate funding to secure extensive leadership development programs and fund student internships. Ron has created enhanced leadership development programs, Falcons Create, a program teaching 3D printing and entrepreneurship, and retention programs that guide students, faculty, and staff in creating spaces of inclusivity and belonging.
Ron earned his Ph.D. in Social and Comparative Analysis in Education at the University of Pittsburgh, an M.S. in Student Personnel Administration from the State University of New York College at Buffalo, and a B.S. in Business Management from The Pennsylvania State University.
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KAT GRAY, Ph.D.
Kat Gray is a higher education specialist — and optimist. She believes we can make our institutions into the joyful, collaborative, sustainable, and successful communities we want them to be. She focuses on removing bureaucratic barriers to student success and co-creating dynamic and inclusive institutional culture. With over 20 years of experience as a sociologist, faculty member, anti-racist educator, dean, and administrator, she is committed to supporting institutions during times of transition, crisis, and growth.
She has helped institutions secure $7 million in grants for opportunity programs, student support programs, faculty development initiatives, and co-curricular projects. Kat is the creator of the Cultivating Curriculum Series, a curriculum incubator that provides logistic and administrative support for faculty embarking on large curriculum projects including new program development. She is also the brains behind
The Higher Education Upgrade Project™ (
TheUP™), a comprehensive, student-centered, and cost-effective new approach to student development and liberal arts learning. She earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Pittsburgh with a research focus on race talk and antiracist social movements. Her innovative segregation simulation, the Neighborhood Game, has been used as an antiracism training tool for high school teachers, superintendents, faculty, and student support staff since 2003.
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