The Institute is honored to have a number of leaders in education, media, technology and law serving on its Advisory Committee. The Committee meets annually at Teachers College.
Karen Arenson
Karen Arenson is well known for her work as a reporter covering higher education for The New York Times. In May 2008, she retired from her position at metro desk at The Times. Previously, she was deputy business editor, Sunday business editor and reporter.
Joshua Benton
Joshua Benton is director of the Nieman Journalism Lab. Before spending a year at Harvard as a 2008 Nieman Fellow, he spent 10 years in newspapers, most recently at The Dallas Morning News.
Linda Darling-Hammond
Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles Ducommon Professor of Education at Stanford University School of Education, where she launched the School Redesign Network, the Stanford Educational Leadership Institute, and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. Her work focuses on school restructuring, teacher education, and educational equity. She was education advisor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
Virginia Edwards
Virginia B. Edwards is the editor and publisher of Education Week. She was named editor in December 1995, and had served as the newspaper’s executive editor for six years before that. She oversees a staff of nearly 50 editors, reporters and graphic artists engaged in the weekly production of Education Week.
Paul Goren
Paul Goren is the Lewis-Sebring director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute. He also served as senior vice president of The Spencer Foundation from 2001-2010.
Paul Hechinger
Paul Hechinger is a veteran of broadcast and online journalism. He has produced cross-medium journalism for Time, Court TV, NPR and The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour.
Frederick Hess
Frederick Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI). His research interests include education philanthropy, urban school reform and the impact of education research.
Luis Huerta
Luis Huerta is an associate professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University. His scholarly interests include education policy, decentralization in education, school choice (charter schools, vouchers, home schooling, tuition tax credits), privatization in education, and school finance.
Vernon Loeb
Vernon Loeb is deputy managing editor for news at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he’s become a big booster of local coverage and an ardent and eloquent voice for saving newspapers. He oversees coverage of metro, business, national, foreign and education.
Kay McClenney
Kay McClenney is Director of the Center for Community College Student Engagement and Sid W. Richardson Endowed Fellow in the Community College Leadership Program (CCLP) at The University of Texas at Austin. She also directs the Center’s Initiative on Student Success, supported by the MetLife Foundation and Houston Endowment Inc.
Deborah McGriff
Deborah McGriff is a partner at NewSchools Venture Fund, where she leads the firm’s Academic Systems Initiative, and contributes to investment strategy and management assistance for a variety of its portfolio ventures.
Michael Schudson
Michael Schudson is a full-time faculty member of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of six books and editor of two others concerning the history and sociology of the American news media, advertising, popular culture, Watergate, and cultural memory.
Bob Sipchen
Bob Sipchen is the Editor in Chief and Deputy National Communications Director of Sierra magazine at Sierra Club. He was an editor, staff writer, and columnist at the Los Angeles Times from 1984 to 2007 and was senior editor of Los Angeles Times Magazine from 1997 to 2001.
Richard Swanson
Richard Swanson is a partner at Arnold & Porter LLP in the firm’s litigation and corporate & securities practices. He specializes in commercial litigation, securities, bankruptcy, creditors’ rights, insolvency, and professional liability for corporate directors and officers.
Amy Stuart Wells
Amy Stuart Wells is a full-time faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University Her scholarly interests include educational policy, race and education, charter schools, school desegregation and school choice policy.