2017 Adult Participants
Matt Meyer is currently the Associate Vice President of Educational Innovations in the Programs and Student Services Division of the NC Community College System. In this role, Matt is responsible for multiple initiatives including Council of Associations for Engagement, Prior Learning Sources and Assessments, Apprenticeship Coordination, and national certification data projects implementation. From 2009 until 2016, Matt served as Associate Vice President of STEM Innovations and Strategic Planning. In this role, Matt was responsible for all STEM workforce initiatives for the community college system and provided supervision and assistance to the Director of Strategic Planning. Prior 2009, Matt was the Executive Director of the North Carolina BioNetwork (11/2006 – 2/2009).
From 1995 to1998, Matt served as the Chairperson of Mechanical Engineering Technology at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College (A-B Tech) in Asheville, North Carolina. In November of 1998, Matt became Dean of Business and Industry Services. Following A-B Tech’s acquisition of a new campus and a minor re-organization in 2001, his title was changed to Dean of Corporate and Economic Development and Senior Administrator of A-B Tech’s new 277,000 square foot Enka Campus. In this position he helped develop and initiate the opening of the Small Business Incubator and the Biotechnology Commercialization and Training Center on the Enka Campus. Matt was also part of the Steering Committee to Strengthen Biotechnology in Western North Carolina in 2002.
Prior to his work as the Director of BioNetwork, Matt served as Dean of Workforce Training with the Community College Workforce Alliance (a partnership between J. Sargeant Reynolds and John Tyler Community Colleges) in Richmond, Virginia from 2003 until 2006.
Matt is currently serving on Credential Engine Higher Ed. Board, Kenan Fellows Board of Advisors and NC Space Grant Advisory Board. He lives in Cary, NC with his wife and two daughters.
Dr. Mike Mullen serves as Vice Chancellor and Dean for the Division of Academic and Student Affairs (DASA) at North Carolina State University. DASA provides academic, co-curricular, and extra-curricular support and programming for all 34,000 students at NC State. As Vice Chancellor and Dean, he is responsible for academic and student affairs programming across the student life cycle that contributes to the success of all students at NC State. This includes traditional areas of undergraduate academic affairs and student affairs in addition to providing leadership for two academic departments and all arts programming. He is also a Professor in the Department of Soil Science at NCSU.
Prior to his arrival at NC State in 2012, Mullen served as Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education at the University of Kentucky from August 2009 to July 2012. He also was Associate Dean in the College of Agriculture from 2004 until 2009 and was on the Plant and Soil Science faculty from 2002 through 2012. During his eight years of academic administration at UK, he worked closely with Student Affairs on First Year Experience courses, common reading initiatives, and other student success programs. While at the University of Kentucky, he was also a faculty partner in the early phases of the Sustainable Agriculture Program there, and later an administrative supporter. Before joining the faculty at the University of Kentucky, Mullen spent 13 years in the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at the University of Tennessee.
Dr. Mullen has received several teaching awards, including the NACTA Teacher Fellow Award in 2002 and Distinguished Educator Award in 2014 and the TN Association of Colleges and Teachers Outstanding Teacher Award in 1996. He also received the University of Tennessee W.F. and Golda Moss Outstanding Teacher Award and the UT National Alumni Association’s Outstanding Teacher award in 1996. The Southern Branch of the American Society of Agronomy also recognized him with the Early-Career Award in Education in 1996 and the Career Award in Education in 2003. Most recently, Mullen was named an NC State College of Agriculture and Life Science Outstanding Alumni in October 2014.
A native of Fort Wayne IN, Dr. Mullen received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Purdue University. He completed the Ph.D. in Soil Science from North Carolina State University in 1987. He and his wife Deborah have two sons, John and Michael.
Mebane Rash is the CEO and editor-in-chief of EdNC, an online platform that launched in January 2015 featuring nonpartisan news, research, data, and analysis on all things K-12 to engage the state in a bipartisan conversation about our schools. She is also the president and CEO of the nonpartisan N.C. Center for Public Policy Research.
Mebane is a public school kid, attending Irwin Elementary, First Ward Elementary, McClintock Middle, and East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte. She graduated from the University of Virginia in 1990 and the UNC School of Law in 1993. At the UNC School of Law, she was a member of the North Carolina Law Review. She has been a member of the North Carolina State Bar since 1993, and she is admitted to practice in both the state and federal court system.
Mebane was selected in 1997 to be a William C. Friday Fellow for Human Relations, a fellowship for emerging leaders across North Carolina, and she served on the inaugural Z. Smith Reynolds Leadership Council. She is a member and president-elect of the Board of Trustees of the national Governmental Research Association. In 2013, she was one of 60 women from 25 countries invited to study Women and Power: Leadership in the New World at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has won national awards from the Governmental Research Association for most distinguished research, outstanding policy achievement, and most effective education of the public on an issue.