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Higher Education Reconsidered: Executing Change to Drive Collective Impact


The All Star Lineup for SUNY’s October 29-30, 2014 conference has been announced.

SUNY has carefully curated an opening panel of some of the nation's most innovative change leaders to bring to you their lessons learned from the field. From health care to education, these six agents of change have been at the forefront of large-scale initiatives, and have the stories to prove it. Whether their focus is to eradicate homelessness, ensure all children are supported academically from cradle to career, or redesign a state's Medicaid program, their initiatives each prove that no problem is too big to solve when we collectively come together.

This dynamic panel will be moderated by David Leonhardt, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalism and managing editor of The Upshot, The New York Times' newest website aimed at delivering an analytical approach to the day's biggest news stories.

We hope you browse the speaker's biographies and explore the amazing work that each of these trailblazers is leading.   

Moderator David Leonhardt runs The Upshot, a new Times web site dedicated to covering politics and policy. The site, launched in the spring of 2014, takes a conversational, analytical approach to many of the day’s biggest news stories. The Upshot also emphasizes data visualization and interactives from The Times’ award-winning graphics staff.

Before being named to oversee the new venture in late 2013, Mr. Leonhardt was the paper's Washington bureau chief, overseeing coverage of politics, national security, the law, economics and domestic policy from Washington. Previously, Mr. Leonhardt wrote Economic Scene, a weekly economics column, for the business section, looking at both the broad American economy and the economics of everyday life. In April 2011, Mr. Leonhardt won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary, for his columns.

       
Joe McCannon leads the Billions Institute with his friend Becky Kanis Margiotta. Joe was previously a political appointee in the Obama Administration, serving as Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and rolling out major pieces of the Affordable Care Act. Before this, he was vice president and faculty on large-scale improvement at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, leading the organization's major domestic initiative to improve patient safety, the 100,000 Lives Campaign, and starting its work in Africa. He has supported large-scale transformation in several nations, including Canada, Denmark, England, Japan and South Africa, and consulted on the topic for a number of organizations, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Community Solutions (100,000 Homes Campaign).

       
James Kvaal is the deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council, which coordinates the domestic policy-making process in the White House. Prior to his current position, he was the policy director on the Obama for America 2012 campaign. In the first term of the Obama Administration, he worked as deputy undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Education and special assistant to the president for economic policy, where he worked on higher education and labor market policies including student financial aid, community college reform, and simplifying the student aid application. Kvaal previously served in positions in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Clinton White House. He graduated from Stanford University and Harvard Law School.

       
Danette Gerald Howard is Vice President for Policy and Mobilization at Lumina Foundation, the nation's largest private foundation focused solely on increasing student access and success in postsecondary education. Dr. Howard oversees several of Lumina's key strategies to increase Americans' attainment of high-quality postsecondary degrees and credentials, including strategic work in both state and federal policy and the Foundation's growing national convening function. She also leads the Foundation's efforts to mobilize and engage employers, metropolitan areas, higher education institutions and other key actors with a stake in postsecondary attainment.

       
Jeff Edmondson is managing director of StriveTogether, a national cradle-to-career initiative that brings together leaders in Pre-K-12 schools, higher education, business and industry, community organizations, government leaders, parents and other stakeholders who are committed to helping children succeed from birth through careers. Edmondson was founding executive director of the Strive Partnership in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, a partnership of postsecondary, K-12, business, philanthropic, non-profit, and civic organizations in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky aimed at increasing educational aspirations, achievement, and attainment of students throughout the region.

       
Jason Helgerson became New York's Medicaid Director on January 5, 2011. New York's Medicaid program provides vital health care services to over 5.3 million New Yorkers and has an annual budget in excess of $54 billion. Jason also serves as the Executive Director for New York's Medicaid Redesign Team. In this capacity he leads Governor Cuomo's effort to fundamentally reshape the state's Medicaid program in order to both lower costs and improve health care quality. Prior to arriving in New York, Helgerson was Wisconsin's Medicaid Director. In that capacity, he administered the state's nationally recognized BadgerCare Plus program for children and families (Wisconsin's Medicaid, and SCHIP); BadgerCare Plus Core Plan; SeniorCare (Pharmacy Plus Waiver); FoodShare (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program); and Wisconsin's Chronic Disease Program.  

       
Becky Margiotta and her friend, Joe McCannon, co-founded the Billions Institute to answer one question: how do we unleash a billion people to solve the world's biggest problems in the next 50 years? As the Commander of Training for the Institute, Becky is responsible for building a force of change agents who will transform the planet. Previously, Margiotta led the highly successful 100,000 Homes Campaign for Community Solutions. Featured on 60 Minutes, the Campaign was a nationwide large-scale change effort to find and house 100,000 of the most long-term and medically vulnerable homeless people in America by July 2014. The Campaign met their objective one month early. Before that, she commanded two Special Operations/Airborne companies in the US Army. 

Hotel rooms at the conference rate are still available at ROW NYC, one of the two hotels available for your needs in New York City.
Book your room now!

For a complete overview of conference accommodations,
click here.

 
View the Conference Agenda  

About SUNYCON 2014:

We stand united in the quest to expand access, ensure completion, and guarantee success, and yet we struggle with how to get ourselves there. How can our large, intricate, and complicated organizations transform themselves into nimble, responsive, and focused institutions?

This conference will explore large-scale change, the mechanics of change, and how to build the habits of the mind to begin working together across sectors to drive collective impact.

Learn more at
www.suny.edu/sunycon/2014

Cynthia Cooper for SUNY System Administration
Marketing and Community Relations
09/25/2014