What might be possible if community and organization members were fully engaged and using their strengths to collectively achieve shared visions?

This is the question that motivates Cheri Torres and has her focused on collaboration. Given current global challenges, Cheri uses strengths-based organizational design practices to help clients respond effectively to increasing levels of complexity in their environments and growing demand for innovation and change. Her strategy is to expand collaborative capacity in communities and organizations using Appreciative Inquiry, Sociotechnical Systems Design, and Experiential Learning.  She does this by partnering with her clients to intentionally design workplace environments, multi-stakeholder conversations, organizational systems and individual and team training to maximize value for all stakeholders.

Her experience has taught her that systems and events that are intentionally designed for collaboration elicit our inherent collaborative capacity, regardless of our differences in background, views, or values. Expanding that capacity through lessons and intentional practice leads to increasing competence in thinking and working together with joy and creativity, resulting in sustainable innovation and ever-evolving excellence.

Cheri believes people are capable of extraordinary contributions when given the opportunity; consequently, she works with organization and community leadership to design for full engagement, and she provides strategies for people to expand their capacity to take advantage of new opportunities.  Her training and coaching programs are uniquely designed for immediate and long-term impact, focusing on changing workplace practices rather than people.

Cheri has worked in education, healthcare, manufacturing, service industries, government, military, and community services thoughout the United States as well as in Mexico, Canada, Ireland, and Great Britain. She has trained thousands in the practice of Appreciative Inquiry and Experiential Learning and she has authored or co-authored numerous articles and books, including Dynamic Relationships: Unleashing the Power of Appreciative Inquiry in Daily Living, The Appreciative Facilitator, and From Conflict to Collaboration. In 1996 she co-designed a patented, award winning, innovative portable challenge course training using Appreciative Inquiry, which is used in hundreds of schools, community youth programs, military training programs, and corporations around the world.

Cheri holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology with a specialization in Collaborative Learning from the University of Tennessee. She also holds an MBA, a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology, Level II certification in Spiral Dynamics Integral, and training in the Sociotechnical Systems Design Process.

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Specialties:

• Appreciative Inquiry
• Appreciative Process
• Collaborative Decision Making
• Communication
• Conflict Resolution
• Leadership
• Learning Styles
• Management Development
• Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
  
• Service Learning
• Team Building
  

Diana K. Kelly has over 25 years of experience in higher education, providing faculty development seminars and workshops in the U.S., Ireland, England, and Germany. She has also made several keynote presentations for colleges and for international conferences on teaching and learning as well as lifelong learning.

In her stimulating workshops and seminars, Diana models “best practice” by using active learning methods and by providing practical materials for participants to use in their teaching. She also facilitates an imaginative “visioning” process for strategic planning, including developing a campus strategy for teaching and learning.

Diana Kelly has written chapters for two recent books on faculty development:

1. “Do You.Know What Your Students Are Learning? (And do you care?)” in Emerging Issues in the Practice of University Teaching and Learning published in Ireland by the All Ireland Society for Higher Education (AISHE).
2. “Planning and Running Events” in A Guide to Staff and Educational Development, edited by Peter Kahn & David Baume. London: Kogan Page.

Diana Kelly earned her doctorate and master’s degree in Higher Education at the Claremont Graduate University. Her bachelor’s degree is in Communications (Broadcasting) from California State University, Fullerton. Before starting to teach at Fullerton College in 1980 she was a radio broadcaster at KWIZ radio in Santa Ana.

As a graduate of Fullerton College (AA English), Diana Kelly is strongly committed to the mission of community colleges and understands the challenges of teaching and learning in community colleges. She worked in the California Community Colleges for 19 years, first as a full-time faculty member in Communications, then as a faculty developer, and finally as an Associate Dean of Continuing Education.

Most recently Diana Kelly has spent six years in leadership roles in faculty development in two well-respected universities in Ireland: the Dublin Institute of Technology and Trinity College Dublin. Diana Kelly has returned to California, working as a full-time higher education consultant.

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Specialties:

• Active Learning
• Adult Learning
• Alternative Instructional Delivery
• Assessment and Testing
  
• Classroom Assessment Techniques
• Curriculum Design
• Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn
• Experiential Learning
• Facilitating
• Faculty training and development
• Learning-centered teaching and training
  
• Learning paradigm
• self-esteem building
• Learning Styles
• Learning Theory
• Outcomes-based teaching or training
• Part-time faculty teaching and development
  
• Program review
• Resume Writing
• Strategic Planning
• Visioning and Planning
  

Earl Bloor has a diverse background spanning higher education, government and industry, including twenty-five years as a chemistry instructor and administrator of a wide range of college-level programs, including arts, sciences, health occupations, technology, and trades programs. He has managed major instructional divisions in colleges in Canada, Massachusetts and California, and in Abu Dhabi (UAE). In government, he has worked with departments focusing on human resources development and apprenticeship training. For a two year period, he coordinated corporate development and training programs for a Middle Eastern oil operating company. With his wife, he publishes a regional magazine which focuses on sustainability issues.

Earl has managed major curriculum development projects, such as the Competency Based Apprenticeship Training Program in Alberta (Canada) and the Adult Applied Academics Project in British Columbia (Canada). Earl was one of the first Facilitators/Trainers of the Instructional Skills Workshop Program, now a major element in instructional improvement programs in colleges and universities around the world, and one of its original Directors. Earl has been certified by Company of Experts.net as both an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator and an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training (AIFT©) Trainer.  He is also a certified Team Coach.

Earl’s experience has led him to understand that empathy is at the root of every successful human relationship. “My approach to supervision is relationship-based. I believe that every employee seeks to do the best job s/he can do. If there are factors preventing peak performance, these need to be identified in a non-threatening manner and addressed. This belief is at the base of the work I do to help organizations plan to achieve the goals that are most important to them.”

Earl earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Western Ontario (London, Canada) and conducted research at the University of Illinois and Simon Fraser University (Canada) before settling into a long and rewarding career based in community colleges around the world.

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Specialties:

• Appraising
  
• Appreciative Inquiry
• Coaching
• Consulting
  
• Counseling
• Curriculum Development
  
• Delegation
  
• Effective Communications
• Empowerment
• Instructional Skills Development
  
• Leadership
• Presentation Skills
• Strategic Planning
• Teaching & Learning Styles
• Team Building
• Teamwork
  

Kay Weiss is a community college administrator and has extensive experience in professional and organizational development.   In addition to teaching, Kay has served as a division dean, department chair, committee chair, and Standard Chair for Accreditation. She received the outstanding professor of the year award at her college in 1999 and, in 2000, the Golden Apple Award from the San Bernardino Education Roundtable. In 2006, was the recipient of the National Leadership Award presented by the National Council for Staff, Program and Organizational Development (NCSPOD.)  Kay has been certified by Company of Experts.net as an Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Trainer and an Instructional Skills Workshop Trainer.

Kay has been an extremely active volunteer with NCSPOD, serving as Western Region Vice President, President Elect, President, and Past President. She currently serves as Certificate Program Liaison, working with newer practitioners and mentors on NCSPOD’s professional certificate process.  She has served as facilitator for the New Practitioners Institute, the Summer Institute and the International Professional Developers Workshop for NCSPOD.

She has also served as the lead facilitator for various Campus Great Teachers Format Seminars, including Great Staff Seminars, and the Great Online Teachers Seminar and has utilized both Appreciative Inquiry and the World Café Model to facilitate dialogue about topics “that matter most” in a variety of settings..

Kay is a long-time member of the California Community College Council for Staff and Organizational Development (4C/SD), the International Reading Association, and the California Reading Association.

She holds a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Southern California, a master of arts in education degree from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and a bachelor of science degree in general studies/education from the University of Southern California.

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Specialties:

• Appreciative Inquiry
• Appreciative Inquiry Facilitator Training
• Classroom Assessment Techniques^TM
• Customer Service
• Department Chair Institute
• Great Teaching or Great Teachers Seminar^TM
• Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW)
• Workshop Facilitator Development (FDW)^TM
• Leadership Training and Development
• Learning Communities
• Learning Styles
• Online Education
• Orientation Programs
• Presentation Skills Workshops (PSW)^TM
• Student Learning Outcomes & Assessment
• Technology-Mediated Teaching (TMT)^TM
• True Colors