Page 17 - Chair Academy's 26th Annual Conference Program

2017 Gary L. Filan Excellence in Leadership Award Recipients

Deb Walsh

Deb Walsh is Director of College Professional Development at Chippewa Valley
Technical College and Coordinator for the Wisconsin Leadership Development
Institute (WLDI), an extensive leadership development program that develops
leaders at the sixteen Wisconsin Technical Colleges. Deb serves on a statewide
Wisconsin Technical College System team to facilitate the transition to Wiscon-
sin’s Faculty Quality Assurance System, putting processes in place to assure
quality instruction through the selection, development, and evaluation of full-time
and adjunct faculty. Deb’s desire to develop future talent for higher education
specifc to teaching and learning, leadership, and organizational development
brought her to her current role, having served as a faculty member and program
coordinator for twenty years.

While a program coordinator and faculty member, Deb led the development and
implementation of accelerated and online management programs, directed at the
working adult. She prepared numerous students for leadership roles in both the
business and non-proft sectors. Deb developed a passion for creating learn-
ing designs, methods, and environments that facilitate learning for all students.
This passion led Deb to engage in research on the efectiveness of brain-based
teaching and learning. Deb has consulted with academic leaders on brain-based
teaching and learning, and has presented brain-based teaching workshops, and
has been a keynote speaker on these topics, reaching over 1500 faculty and
academic leaders.

Matt Muller

Matthew Zanoni Müller was born in Bochum, Germany, and grew up in Eugene,
Oregon and Upstate New York. After graduating from Hawthorne Valley High
School, Matthew enrolled at Clark University in Worcester for a year before
transferring to Emerson College in Boston, where he earned his BA in creative
writing and literature.

In 2010, Matthew graduated with an MFA in Fiction Writing from Warren Wilson
College in Asheville, North Carolina, and subsequently began teaching at Colum-
bia-Greene Community College in Hudson, New York, where he stayed for the next
three years. After moving to Massachusetts and working as an adjunct, Matthew
became an Assistant Professor of English at Berkshire Community College in
2014.

Matthew has also been involved in the family court system, teaching a literature
class through a program he helped to start called Enhancing Families Through
Literature, which seeks to foster healthy co-parenting interactions through
engagement with literature. He also co-founded Berkshire Community College’s
Writing Center, and recently helped to launch BCC’s frst Undergraduate Scholars
Conference. He has also been active in his union, and has been the high school
alignment liaison to local school districts. In April of 2014, his frst book, Drops on
the Water: Stories About Growing Up from a Father and Son, was published by
Apprentice House press at Loyola University in Maryland. Along with magazine
publications, Matthew is also at work on a collection of stories, and two novels,
and has been teaching a range of classes, specializing in creative writing, and
American Literature.
Previous Honorees
2012 Lech Krzywonos Stephen Case 2015 Rosanna To Dan Weinert
2013 Randy Singer Mary Chatigny 2016 Melanie Abts Meena Amlani
2014 Viola Midegs Linda Austin Megen Saez Tim Densmore

The Chair Academy’s 26th Annual International Leadership Conference 15