The Higher Education Consortia 2024 Advisory Board

We are pleased to introduce the members of the Higher Education Consortia Advisory Board. The members of the board are highly qualified educational leaders, many from institutions that have participated in The Cost Study. In partnership with HEC’s senior leadership, the Advisory Board meets quarterly to support HEC’s mission and provides guidance to: improve The Cost Study’s data quality and security, maintain the highest ethical standards regarding accuracy and integrity of data use, and contribute to the refinement and innovation of data.

Ann Lehman (Chairperson)

Associate Vice President for Grants and Research and Chief of Staff, Saint Bonaventure University

Ann Lehman is Associate Vice President for Grants and Research and Chief of Staff, Saint Bonaventure University. Lehman, who has worked at St. Bonaventure for more than 20 years, previously served as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Director of Institutional Research, Registrar, and School of Business academic coordinator. Lehman holds a bachelor’s degree business administration from Clarion University, an MBA from St. Bonaventure, and a graduate certificate in Institutional Research from Penn State. Lehman has also aided in the university’s strategic planning as a member of the University Planning Commission and also served in key leadership roles as a member of the University’s permanent accreditation committee, co-chair of the Employee Benefits advisory committee and as a member of the University’s Academic Program Evaluation Committee. She is a member of the Associate for Institutional Research, the Northeast Association for Institutional Research and the Assessment Network of New York.

Shari Ellertson, Ph.D.

Senior Executive Director, Institutional Effectiveness, Boise State University

Dr. Shari Ellertson has over 30 years of experience across roles in administration, teaching, research, and assessment at public universities. She currently serves as Senior Executive Director of Institutional Effectiveness at Boise State University where she has been since 2013. She holds a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy studies from Iowa State University, an M.S. in counseling and student affairs from Moorhead State University (MN), and a B.S. degree in psychology from North Dakota State University. She completed a postdoctoral research appointment with the Research Institute for Studies in Education (RISE) at Iowa State University. Prior to her current role, Dr. Ellertson held various positions across academic and student affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Iowa State University, Moorhead State University (MN), and North Dakota State University. She also served as a Teagle Assessment Scholar through the Center of Inquiry at Wabash College and is active in the Association for Institutional Research (AIR), including roles on the Board of Directors, Board secretary, and the Nominations and Elections Committee. In 2021 she completed a mission fulfillment fellowship through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

Carol Ann MacGregor, Ph.D.

Vice President Academic and Dean, St. Jerome’s University

Carol Ann MacGregor, PhD is the Vice President Academic and Dean at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Dr. MacGregor was previously the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Loyola University New Orleans where she oversaw a broad portfolio including Institutional Research Institutional Effectiveness. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Princeton University. Her quantitative research has been published in places such as American Sociological Review, Social Science Research, and Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. A scholar of religion, organizations, and K-12 education, her academic and administrative interests now align in the sociology of higher education.

Richard J. Reeves (ex officio)

Associate Vice President for Institutional Research and Effectiveness, University of Delaware

Richard Reeves joined the University of Delaware in January 2019. Previously he worked at the National Center of Education Statistics where he was the Chief of the Postsecondary Branch and led the IPEDS data collection since 2013. He began his federal service at the U.S. Department of Energy where he was the chief of the Survey Methods Branch of the Energy Information Administration (’10-‘13). Prior to his work with the federal government, he was the inaugural Director of Research for the National Student Clearinghouse (’06-‘09), a Senior Researcher at Cornell University (’00-’06), and the Director of Enrollment Research and Technology at Johns Hopkins (’97-’00). A graduate of Frostburg State University, he earned a master’s degree in experimental psychology at Towson University and a master’s degree in statistics at Cornell University. An engaging presenter, Richard has given numerous presentations, workshops, keynote addresses on topics related to enrollment management, student estimation, data system design, time to degree, federal reporting standards, and topics related to postsecondary education policy. At UD, Richard works on tasks related to analytic systems and reporting, data governance, the Cost Study, accreditation, and other work related to measuring and estimating the institution.

Richard Riccardi, Sc.D.

Deputy Commissioner for Academic Affairs and Student Success, Massachusetts Department of Higher Education

Dr. Richard L. Riccardi is currently the Deputy Commissioner for Academic Affairs and Student Success for the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE), serving as the DHE’s chief academic officer. He comes to the DHE from Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), where he was the assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs. He earned his Sc.D. in Management Information Systems from the University of New Haven and his Master of Science degree in Research and Measurement and Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics from Southern Connecticut State University. Previously, at Rider University, he served as Senior Associate Provost and Dean of Libraries as well as the Interim Chief Information Officer. Richard worked in the Connecticut State University System for over 27 years in both the System Office and at his alma mater, and has experience in student information systems, graduate and continuing education, institutional effectiveness, and enrollment management.

Ronald D. Thompson, Ph.D.

IR Senior Analyst, University of Missouri System, Office of Institutional Research

Ronald D. Thompson, Ph.D., has been an IR Senior Analyst in the University of Missouri System’s Office of Institutional Research (UM IR) since 2012. Dr. Thompson began assisting the now long retired UM IR Director with the Delaware Cost Study (which UM IR manages for the four UM campuses) shortly after joining UM IR as an Associate IR Analyst in 2007. Previously, Dr. Thompson provided IR support for a student services support office on the University of Missouri – Columbia (MU) campus. And much prior to that, while a doctoral candidate at MU, Dr. Thompson provided IR support, as a Graduate Research Assistant, for the Office of the Associate Dean of the MU Graduate School and for the MU Office of Human Resources. Dr. Thompson has been a tenure track Assistant Professor of Statistics and Management Science on the faculty of the University of Michigan Business School, and an applications programmer in the regional offices of a large Midwestern public utility company. Dr. Thompson earned a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Missouri – Columbia, an M.A. in Mathematical Statistics from Bowling Green State University, and a B.A. in Mathematics and Computer Science from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Past Board Members

Maria Calzada – Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Loyola University – New Orleans

Michael Gass – (Retired) Vice Chancellor for Strategy and Analytics, University of North Carolina at Asheville

William Kaempfer – (Retired) Senior Vice Provost, Associate Vice Chancellor for Budget and Planning and Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Colorado at Boulder

Jeff Reynolds – Director, Decision Support and Analysis, Northern Illinois University

John Sawyer (ex officio) – (former) Associate Provost, Institutional Research and Effectiveness, University of Delaware