Kate Eberle Walker, Joel Thierstein, and John Dennis Join panOpen Board of Directors
panOpen is pleased to announce the additions of Kate Eberle Walker, Joel Thierstein, and John Dennis, to its Board of Directors, joining Founder and CEO Brian Jacobs and Randy Shuken.
NEW YORK, July 10, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- panOpen is pleased to announce the additions of Kate Eberle Walker, Joel Thierstein, and John Dennis, to its Board of Directors, joining Founder & CEO Brian Jacobs and Randy Shuken.
Kate Eberle Walker, who will assume the role of Board Chair, is a leader in the education market with more than 20 years of experience leading, advising, acquiring, and investing in education companies. Kate served most recently as CEO of The Princeton Review, a leading provider of tutoring, test prep and admissions services. Kate is very active in mentoring and supporting early stage edtech companies, and she also supports non-profit education initiatives through her work with Prospect Schools, The International School of Brooklyn and The Morgan Moses Foundation.
Earlier in her career, Kate spent 5 years in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, followed by 9 years at Kaplan, where she managed M&A and investments, including the creation of the Kaplan-Techstars Edtech Accelerator. Kate holds a B.S. from Georgetown University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Kate commented, "It's been clear for some time now that the traditional model of educational content isn't serving students or institutions well--textbooks are too expensive, inflexible, and represent a dated approach to learning. panOpen is poised to help shape what comes next--central to which is freeing faculty and institutions from the constraints of the commercial copyright and radically lowering costs for educational content, while also providing cutting edge learning technologies to support these materials. I'm delighted to be a part of the team and look forward to continued great progress."
Joel Thierstein is currently President of West Virginia Wesleyan College. He is a leader in higher education, and one of the most successful pioneers in Open Educational Resources. While Joel was Associate Provost at Rice University, he conceived of, and successfully sought foundation funds for, the project at Rice University that would become known as OpenStax College, unquestionably the most consequential initiative concerning OER since these materials first came into use.
Between his years at Rice and his current role, Joel served as Senior Advisor and Counsel to the US Department of Education's Undersecretary, Martha Kanter. He was also Provost at Kentucky State University and, most recently at Mount St. Joseph University in Ohio. In addition to his role with panOpen, Joel is an Advisory Board Member of SXSWedu, and a member of the board of Ten Thousand Villages, Cincinnati. Joel holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication, a J.D., an M.S. in Telecommunications, and a B.S. in Telecommunications Management, all from Syracuse University.
"Public-private partnerships play an essential role in the long term success of OER," Joel commented, "By providing a full set of tools to support existing OER and foster collaborative works cross institutionally, panOpen exemplifies the value a private company can provide not only for adopters of OER but for the academic community generally. panOpen is positioned well to play a central role in the reshaping of educational content and I am excited to be a part of this transformation."
John Dennis is a seasoned independent investor and family foundation manager who focuses on social impact ventures. For 25 years, he has worked as an international development consultant and project manager. He has worked for Asian Development Bank, Cornell University, Oxfam American, UNDP, Worldwide Fund for Nature, in countries such as Madagascar, Sudan, Afghanistan, Belize, Thailand, and Cambodia. More recently, John led an assessment of two Pakistani universities that resulted in a large USAID grant to Faisalabad University to create the U.S.-Pakistan Center for Advanced Studies in Agriculture and Food Security in partnership with UC Davis (http://uspcasafs.uaf.edu.pk/).
John's current interests include examining how open source technology developed at Cornell University for the establishment of safe drinking water supplies can be sustainably extended to some of the poorest communities in the world. John holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Agriculture and a Ph.D. in Developmental Sociology and Agronomy, both from Cornell University.
"panOpen is challenging fundamental assumptions about the way educational content is produced and shared," John noted, "improving equity of access to course materials and providing faculty with enormous control over their curriculum. I'm thrilled to be part of a venture that is not only an impressive software business but one that is also empowering faculty and improving academic outcomes."
"The addition of Kate, Joel, and John is a threshold moment in our history," said Brian Jacobs. "Each brings outstanding and unique qualities and experiences to our company; the power of all three together will help ensure that we continue to build a venture that has a great impact on educational practices while also building a successful business."
The new members join fellow board members, founder and CEO Brian Jacobs and Randy Shuken. Brian is a veteran edtech entrepreneur and is also the founder of Akademos, a leading online bookstore and marketplace for higher educational institutions. He is also a former academic and holds a B.A. from SUNY Albany and a Ph.D. from Cornell University, where he also taught.
Randy is an active investor, board member, and advisor to tech companies in the areas of financial services, education, big data, and analytics. Randy worked for MasterCard Worldwide for more than 25 years, helping the company to go from turnaround to successful IPO and Fortune 100 company. Randy holds a B.A. from U.C. Berkeley and an MBA Columbia University.
About panOpen
Designed by educators, panOpen is a learning platform that realizes the promise of OER by providing all of the components required for its widespread use. panOpen offers complete peer-reviewed content, customization tools, assessments, analytics, LMS integration, and a means of financially sustaining campus-based OER efforts. With panOpen, faculty adopt enhanced interactive OER as they would a commercial textbook, with confidence in the quality and reliability of the content. panOpen preserves the virtues of OER—radically reducing textbook costs and freeing faculty from the constraints of commercial copyright—while delivering the quality, features, and ease-of-use faculty expect from their learning materials. The result has enormous implications for pedagogical practices, changing the relationships of instructors and students to their educational content.
For more information on panOpen contact Gary LaRosa glarosa(at)panopen(dot)com, visit https://www.panopen.com/, or call 844-200-1511
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