Keynote Presenters

Conference Keynote presenters will include:

Dr. Joan McArthur-Blair, President, Nova Scotia Community College

Dr. Joan McArthur-Blair, President of the Nova Scotia Community College, is a strong leader and educator with extensive experience in post-secondary education roles. Her background includes teaching, faculty and curriculum development, international projects and administrative roles. She is a champion of the unique work that community colleges undertake to meet the needs of students, industry, and communities, and believes that the role of the community college is critical in meeting the future economic and social needs of Nova Scotia and Canada.

Before coming to Nova Scotia in August, 2005, she was Vice-President of Education at Vancouver Community College. She is a visionary leader and a skilled facilitator of teams, enabling people to work effectively together and build on their strengths. Through her collaborative skills she creates a shared vision and mobilizes the necessary strategies to deliver on that vision. She is a dynamic keynote speaker and workshop facilitator; her topics include leadership, organizational transformation and college education in Canada. Joan's doctoral dissertation, "The Inner Life: A Conversation with Leaders in British Columbia Post-Secondary Education" (2004) contributes significantly to leadership research and encourages leaders to examine the underlying tenets of their leadership.

Mark Pogue, Vice President, Higher Education Division, The Gallup Organization

Mark Pogue's mission is to create a world where all students of any age lead successful and self-directed lives, empowered with the knowledge of their talents and how to apply them. For the past six years, Pogue has been a consultant and speaker to higher education institutions and K-12 school districts on building strengths-based organizations.

Pogue participated in the design and creation of StrengthsQuest and continues to direct the project worldwide. StrengthsQuest, a student development and engagement program, is designed to help high school and college students achieve success in academies, career, and life. The StrengthsQuest program also helps instructors, advisors, career counselors, and residence hall directors and assistants incorporate strengths-based experiences in the classroom, in college preparation, freshman orientation, and student life programs, and in small groups and one-on-one feedback sessions. Since its inception, more than 100,000 students have participated in StrengthsQuest programs in a wide range of settings on more than 200 campuses.

Pogue has shared his message of moving from strengths to thousands of educators and students at more than 250 campuses. He works with public and private, secular and non-secular community colleges and universities across the country.

Prior to joining Gallup in 2000, Pogue was a director of a nonprofit youth organization for 13 years. He earned his bachelor's degree in management science from Oklahoma State University. He is currently pursuing a graduate degree at the University of Nebraska. He and his wife live in Minneapolis with their two daughters.

Shane Lopez, Research Director, Clifton Strengths Institute and Senior Scientist, The Gallup Organization

Shane J. Lopez, Ph.D., Senior Scientist in Residence, is an architect of the Gallup Student Poll. A measure of hope, engagement, and well-being, the Student Poll taps into the hearts and minds of American students to determine what drives achievement. Dr. Lopez is the director of the annual Gallup Well-Being Forum, which convenes scholars, leaders, and decision makers to discuss healthcare and global well-being. He also serves as the Research Director for the Clifton Strengths Institute.

Dr. Lopez leads research on the links between hope, strengths development, academic success, and overall well-being and collaborates with scholars around the world on these issues. He specializes in hope and strengths enhancement for students from preschool through college graduation, advocating a whole-school strengths model that also builds the strengths expertise of educators, parents, and youth development organizations. Dr. Lopez has provided strengths mentoring to thousands of college students, including academic, career, and life planning, and he advises schools, colleges, and universities on these issues. He is the coauthor of the statistical reports for the Clifton StrengthsFinder and the Clifton Youth StrengthsExplorer.

Dr. Lopez has published more than 100 articles and chapters and seven books, including Positive Psychology: Exploring the Best in People and The Encyclopedia of Positive Psychology. With C.R. Snyder, he published Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths, which won the Sage Press Book of the Year Award; Positive Psychological Assessment: A Handbook of Models and Measures; and The Handbook of Positive Psychology. With Cynthia Pury, he edited the book Courage, which will be released in 2009.

Dr. Lopez is the past associate editor of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, an editorial board member of the Journal of Positive Psychology, and an ad-hoc reviewer for many psychology journals. He is a licensed psychologist, a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and educational advisor for Discovery Television.