About our Speakers

Lezli Baskerville
Attorney Lezli Baskerville is the Interim President, of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO. Ms. Baskerville's professional career is rooted in NAFEO. She began working with NAFEO as a legal research associate for Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law Herbert O. Reid, Sr., and has worked with NAFEO over the years in many capacities, including as a member of the legal team that negotiated the consent decree in the landmark higher education institutional equalization case of Adams v. Califano; as a member of the NAFEO brief writing teams in the landmark Supreme Court affirmative action cases of Bakke, Weber, and Fullilove; as a program director; and as outside counsel.

Ms. Baskerville has also served as Vice President for Government Relations of The College Board, founding member of The Baskerville Group, a legal and legislative services collective, an administrative appeals judge for employee appeals in the District of Columbia, National Legislative Counsel for the NAACP, Executive Director of the National Black Leadership Roundtable, a member of the appellate team at the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, a congressional staffer, and a law clerk in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Ms Baskerville represented the College Board as project facilitator for the College Board's blue ribbon panel, National Dialogue on Student Financial Aid.

Steve Brooks
Dr. Steve Brooks currently serves as Executive Director of the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authoriy (NCSEAA). Previously he served as associate director of financial aid at Wake Forest University, Dean of Academic Services and Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Louisburg College and Director of Admissions at Louisburg College.

In addition to serving NASFAA, SASFAA and NCASFAA in numerous capacities, Dr. Books has been very actuve with other professional associations. He has served as a trustee for The College Board and chair of the CSS Council and has also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the National Council of Hiigher Education Loan Programs (NCHELP) and for Mapping the Future.

Dr. Brooks has a Doctor of Education, masters and undergraduate degrees from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Brooks is the author of The First Twenty Years: A History of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, 1966-1986; Students, Parents, and Financial Aid: Toward a New Definition of Independence. A Report from a National Survey and "Access to Higher Education in a Changing Society," in The United Methodist Mission in Higher Education: Retrospect and Prospects.

Linda Fierman
Ms. Fireman is the found of Speaking from Experience, based in metro Atlanta. Since 1985 she prepared thousands of sales representatives from all different industries to effectively market their services and products. She also coaches business people who desire to improve their platform skills.

Ms. Fierman spend over fifteen years in corporate executive sales and management. She earned a B.A., from St. Elizabeths College for Women and an M.A. from Monmouth College.

Terry W. Hartle
Dr. Terry Hartle serves as the Senior Vice President and Director of the Division of Government and Public Affairs for American Council on Education (ACE).

For more than a decade, Dr, Hartle has directed the American Council on Education’s (ACE) comprehensive effort to engage federal policy makers on a broad range of issues, including student aid, scientific research, government regulation and tax policy. This work not only involves representation before the U.S. Congress, administrative agencies, and the federal courts, it increasingly includes work on state and local issues of national impact. Since it is considered ACE’S historic role to coordinate the government relations efforts of some 60 associations in the Washington-based higher education community, Hartle is widely considered American higher education’s chief lobbyist. Founded in 1918, ACE is a Washington-based trade association representing more than 1,800 college and university presidents in the United States.

Prior to joining ACE in 1993, he served for six years as education staff director for the U.S. Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, then chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Prior to 1987, Hartle was director of social policy studies and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a research scientist at the Educational Testing Service. He is quoted widely in both the national and international media on higher education issues, has authored or co-authored numerous articles, books, and national studies, and contributes regular book reviews to The Christian Science Monitor. He received a doctorate in public policy from The George Washington University in 1982, a masters in public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in 1974, and a bachelor’s degree in history (summa cum laude) from Hiram College in 1973. He was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree by Northeastern University in 1994. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Donald E. Heller
Don Heller is currently the Associate Professor and Senior Research Associate of the Center for the Study of Higher Education The Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Heller came to Penn State in 2002 from the University of Michigan, where he earned a national reputation for his studies of higher education finance, tuition pricing, financial aid, and student access. He teaches and conducts research on issues relating to higher education economics, public policy, and finance, as well as academic and administrative uses of technology in higher education. The primary focus of his work is on issues of access, choice, and persistence in postsecondary education. He has consulted on higher education policy issues with university systems and policymaking organizations in California, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and Washington, DC, and he has testified in front of state legislative and Congressional committees.

Dr. Heller earned an Ed.D. in Higher Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and holds an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard and a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Tufts University. Before his academic career, he spent a decade as an information technology manager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Heller's research has been published in scholarly journals including The Journal of Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, Change, and The Journal of Student Financial Aid, and his work has been reported on by national media including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Business Week, The Chronicle of Higher Education, CNN Headline News, and Marketplace Radio. He is the editor of the books The States and Public Higher Education Policy: Affordability, Access, and Accountability (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), and Condition of Access: Higher Education for Lower Income Students (ACE/Praeger, 2002). He was also the recipient in 2001 of the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, for his contributions to the literature on student financial aid.

Jacqueline King
Jacqueline E. King is the founding director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the American Council on Education (ACE). Prior to assuming this role in 2000, she served for four years as director of federal policy analysis in the ACE division of government and public affairs. ACE is the umbrella association for American higher education, representing 1,800 two- and four-year colleges, universities, and national and regional education organizations. Before joining ACE, she was associate director for policy analysis at the College Board. Dr. King is the author or co-author of numerous reports, articles, and book chapters on student financing of higher education, access and persistence in postsecondary education, and student demographic trends including the ACE status reports on the Pell Grant and federal education loan programs, Gender Equity in Higher Education: Are Male Students at a Disadvantage? and Crucial Choices: How Students’ Financial Decisions Affect their Academic Success. She is editor of a volume on student financing of postsecondary education, Financing a College Education: How It Works, How It’s Changing, and co-editor of Changing Student Attendance Patterns: Implications for Policy and Practice and is the author of the recently published ACE Brief, Missed Opportunities: Students Who Do Not Apply for Financial Aid.

Dr. King is a frequent speaker at regional and national conferences on higher education. Her work has been featured on CNN and in national publications such as Time, USA Today, and the Washington Post. In 2003, she was awarded the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators for her contributions to the literature on student financial aid. She was named one of the 40 “young leaders of the academy” by Change magazine. Dr. King holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Alex Slater
Alex Slater is a Senior Associate at the Glover Park Group. Slater, who has been with the Glover Park Group since its creation, has extensive experience as communications counsel, with an expertise in corporate positioning, media relations and public affairs honed advising leading global companies.

While at the Glover Park Group, Slater has handled a range of communications challenges for corporations, non-profits and organizations. In the public affairs division, he has advised Microsoft, College Loan Corporation, the United States Telecom Association, the American Postal Workers’ Union and Project Billboard, helping them successfully face critical legislative issues and meet their marketing goals. He received two Pollie Awards from the American Association of Political Consultants for his work on the National Air Traffic Controllers’ Association anti-privatization campaign in 2003. Previously, Slater was Account Executive for Smithfield Financial, one of London’s leading corporate communications firms. Slater also handled daily press relations and advised on paid media initiatives. Mr. Slater has experience in journalism, having worked at the news desk of the London Times and covered company news for the Financial Times and The Express. He worked as an Associate Producer for the national news show of the ITN network.

Slater completed an MA in Communications at the Annenberg School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he researched corporate and political communications strategies. While there he worked with Dean Kathleen Hall Jamieson, leading survey design and analysis of various landmark polls, including the Annenberg National Election 2000 survey, the largest ever poll of the American electorate. Originally from Edinburgh, Scotland, Slater received a BA and MA in History from Cambridge University, where he was President of the Cambridge Union.