Joanne Itano
Interim Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs
Univerity of Hawai'i System
Interim Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Joanne Itano is responsible for the academic vision and goals of the 10-campus University of Hawai‘i System. In collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, she sets the higher education agenda for UH. She also oversees the Hawai‘i Graduation Initiative to increase the number of degrees and certificates awarded by 10,000 by 2015.
Itano joined the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa in 1976 as faculty in the School of Nursing and Dental Hygiene. In addition to teaching, she has published extensively in the field of oncology nursing.
Over her many years of service, Itano has held a number of key administrative positions including chair of the nursing department and director of distance education at UH Manoa, interim vice chancellor for academic affairs at UH West O‘ahu, director of academic support services for the UH Community Colleges and director of academic affairs and academic planning and policy for the UH System.
Itano earned her PhD and MEd in educational psychology and an MS in nursing from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and a BS in nursing from the University of Washington.
Gary Rodwell
Director of Advanced Academic Technology
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
Gary Rodwell is the Architect and lead programmer for the STAR Academic Pathway system. He along with an outstanding team have developed a revolutionary enterprise wide software platform that is able to quantify and evaluate each point along a students academic path and illustrate all these points together as the students narrative/pathway. His software has been the subject of multiple awards, newspaper articles and recent grants.
Gary believes, students, faculty, staff, administration and alumni should rightfully expect to receive significant educational and business value from their investment in information technology. Evidence of the sustainable success of STAR can be seen in the wide spread usage of STAR throughout the UH campuses with the average number of student logins a day in the range of 1,000-10,000 .
Gary Rodwell’s educational background is in Electrical Engineering, prior to being with the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, he was working with British Telecom and Chubb Australia on engineering projects.
David Lassner
President
Univerity of Hawai'i System
David Lassner was appointed University of Hawai‘i president effective July 1, 2014. Prior to that appointment he served as interim president from September 1, 2013.
He has worked at the university since 1977, and was most recently its vice president for information technology and chief information officer. Lassner is also a member of the university’s graduate faculty and has taught both online and in-person in computer science, communications, business and education.
In his prior positions Lassner played an active leadership role in a variety of local, national and international information and communications technology organizations. He served on the boards of Hawai‘i’s High Technology Development Corporation and Public Broadcasting Service affiliate and he chaired the state’s Broadband Task Force. Lassner also served on the board of Internet2 and was a co-founder and board member of the Kuali Foundation, a founding steering committee member and past-chair of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET) cooperative and past-chair of the board of EDUCAUSE, the major professional association for information technology in higher education.
Lassner led a major statewide federally funded project that interconnected public schools, libraries and campuses on six islands with fiber optics and has received multiple awards from the National Science Foundation focused on research and education networking and cyberinfrastructure. He is principal investigator for the Maui High Performance Computing Center and for the Pacific Disaster Center, major Department of Defense programs on Maui.
Lassner earned an AB in economics summa cum laude and MS in computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a PhD in communication and information sciences from the University of Hawai‘i. He has been recognized with Internet2’s Richard Rose Award, WCET’s Richard Jonsen Award and as a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Hawai’i.
Delia Acevedo
Program Velocity Consultant
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
Delia Acevedo is the Program Velocity Consultant for STAR. She works with Gary Rodwell and the STAR team to quantify the progress that students are making along their academic pathway. She aggregates that information and works with academic programs to identify and analyze the factors that are either contributing to or impeding their students’ progress towards degree. Prior to accepting this position, Delia was the Research and Training Coordinator in the Office of Sponsored Research and Programs at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. She also served as an instructor for courses in Political Psychology while completing her PhD in Political Science and Certificate in Survey Methodology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Brad Blitz
Assistant Director, Advisement Center
Georgia State University
Brad Blitz has served students for more than 15 years, performing multiple roles in higher education at proprietary, community and technical, and four year research institutions. At Georgia State University he serves as an Assistant Director of the University Advisement Center, a centralized advising office which serves as the foundational unit within the Office of Student Success to help institutionalize GSU’s top strategic goal to “become a national model for undergraduate education by demonstrating that students from all backgrounds can achieve academic and career success at high rates”. In his role as Assistant Director, he oversees advising of sophomore and junior level students for three of the institution’s six Colleges, using predictive analytics and appreciative advising to increase student retention and graduation rates.
Brad has been active in the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) since 2002, and has served in a variety of leadership roles including his current appointment as the State of Georgia liaison and 2014 Region 4 Conference Chair. Brad has presented at numerous national and regional conferences in higher education on technology issues in academic advising, advisor training and development, and multi-cultural concerns in higher education.
Brad received his Bachelor’s degree from Winona State University in Production and Operations Management, and his Master of Education degree in Human Resource Development and Adult Learning Development from the University of Minnesota.
Joy Nishida
Director of Operations, STAR Advanced Academic Technology
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
Joy Nishida is the Director of Operations for STAR Advanced Academic Technology office. She oversees the functional aspects of the Graduation Pathway system, ensuring effective communication with end users, providing quality assurance testing, and developing support resources. Joy believes strongly in the ideals of public service and leads by example, by being committed to the learning and innovation necessary to deliver the highest degree of quality for the delivery of our services to the public.
Joy’s educational background is in computer science and she is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Mathematics.
