Role of Accreditation in Change Making
Panelists
Karen J. Solomon, Ed.D., Vice President and Chief Transformation Officer, Higher Learning Commission
Karen J. Solomon serves as Vice President and Chief Transformation officer at the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). She serves as a liaison to a portfolio of member institutions and is the Director of the Standard Pathway, one of HLC's two options institutions have for maintaining accreditation. Since 2016, she has been leading HLC's future-focused grant initiatives on innovation, student success, equity, quality awareness and alternative pathways within the workforce.
Dr. Solomon presently serves on the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS) as a public director and the Credential As You Go (CAYG) National Advisory Board. She is a past chair of the WCET Executive Council. Previously, Dr. Solomon was the founding Executive Director of Illinois Campus Compact and served in various roles at ACT, Inc and higher education institutions. She holds an Ed.D. in Adult and Continuing Education from Northern Illinois University.
Kathryn Svinarich, Chief of Staff in the Office of the President and Associate Professor of Physics, Kettering University
University Chief of Staff Dr. Kathryn Svinarich joined Kettering in 1992. Dr. Svinarich's responsibilities include institutional planning, policy development, and problem resolution at the University. She is the liaison to faculty, staff, and student groups and leads approaches to a wide range of University-wide initiatives. She also oversees the operations of the Office of the President. Prior to her appointment as University Chief of Staff, Dr. Svinarich held two concurrent appointments: Associate Provost and Dean. She served as the Associate Provost for Accreditation and Assessment in Academic Affairs, overseeing ABET specialty accreditations, as well as co-leading institutional accreditation with the Higher Learning Commission. As Associate Provost, she also oversaw all student services in Academic Affairs. Dr. Svinarich also held the position of Dean of the College of Sciences and Liberal Arts, overseeing the departments of Computer Science, Liberal Arts, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences. Other prior Kettering experience includes leading the Physics Department for several years and teaching for more than 20 years as a physics professor.
Dr. Svinarich earned her bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Michigan and her Ph.D. in Physics from Wayne State University.
She participated in the Higher Education Resource Services (HERS) Bryn Mawr Summer Institute, and the Harvard Kennedy School's seminar on Crisis Leadership in Higher Education.
She was a founding task force member of the Effective Practice for Physics Programs (EP3), a five-year, $2.2 million program led by the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) to provide physics programs with collections of knowledge, experience, and proven good practice for responding to challenges and engaging in systematic improvement She now sits on the Editorial Board of EP3. Dr. Svinarich was recently selected as a mentor in the American Council on Education's pilot program "Moving the Needle Women's Leadership Mentoring Program."