Keynote Speakers
Jeffrey J. Papa, Ph.D., President, SimpsonScarborough
Jeff spent the first 20 years of his career working in enrollment management and marketing on three college campuses—the University of 
Maryland, Colby-Sawyer College, and Randolph-Macon College. He was one of the first in college admissions to develop a quantitative system for determining—at any point during the recruitment season—which students were most likely to apply, gain admission, and ultimately enroll. Prior to joining SimpsonScarborough, he served as Executive Vice President at Carnegie Communications, where he specialized in providing research, consulting, and creative services to a variety of colleges and universities.
Industry leadership: Jeff is a frequent presenter at professional national conferences focusing on admissions and marketing. His many credits include gigs at NACAC, AACRAO, NSEMC, and NSCAC.
Education: B.A. and M.Ed., Kent State University; Ph.D. in higher education administration, University of Maryland College Park. His doctoral dissertation focused on undergraduate student retention.
Richard K. Lyons, Ph.D., Dean, University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business
Richard K. Lyons became the Bank of America Dean of the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, in July 2008. He is a graduate of the school’s undergraduate business program.
Dean Lyons has focused his time in office refining the Haas School’s strategic plan to leverage the traits that are distinctively Berkeley. He has also launched the public phase of a $300 million capital campaign, the Campaign for Haas. Its goals are centered on transforming the Haas School campus, building a curriculum based on the Berkeley-Haas approach to leadership, and aggressively expanding the school’s faculty and its support for research.
Following completion of his undergraduate studies at Berkeley in 1982, Lyons went on to earn a PhD in international and macroeconomics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1987. He began his teaching career at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business in New York, where he served on the faculty from 1987 until he joined the Haas School faculty in 1993.
As the second-oldest business school in the United States, the Haas School of Business at the University of California Berkeley is one of the world’s leading producers of new ideas and knowledge in all areas of business — which includes the distinction of having two of its faculty members receive the Nobel Prize in Economics over the past 20 years.
The school offers outstanding management education to about 2,200 undergraduate and graduate students each year who come from around the world to study in one of its six degree-granting programs. The school has 40,000 alumni.
The school’s mission is “to develop leaders who redefine how we do business.” The school’s distinctive culture is defined by four defining principles:
- Question the status quo
- Confidence without attitude
- Students always
- Beyond yourself
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