About the Authors

Dave Dillon; Linda Bruce Hill; Alise Lamoreaux; Phyllis Nissila; Thomas Priester; Norma Cárdenas; Linnea Spitzer

About the Authors

Dave Dillon; Linda Bruce Hill; Alise Lamoreaux; Phyllis Nissila; Thomas Priester; Norma Cárdenas; and Linnea Spitzer

Dave Dillon, Curator, Co-Author, and Editor of Blueprint for Success in College and Career

Dave Dillon earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master’s degree in counseling from the University of San Diego. His first career and passion was coaching basketball which he did for seven years at the University of California at San Diego. Following a year of substitute teaching (K-12), four years working in the entertainment department for the San Diego Padres major league baseball organization, and a year as a product analyst in the video game industry, Dave continued to pursue his passion of counseling and teaching at the community college level.

As a tenured professor and counseling faculty at Grossmont College, Dave enjoys connecting with students. He does his best to keep up with the next generation and their use of technology in and out of the classroom. His passion has not ceased from his UCSC commencement speech to presenting at local and national conferences. Dave resides in Carlsbad, California, with his wife, two daughters, and yellow labrador, Lucy.

This OER (Open Educational Resources) project has taken full advantage of the “5 R’s” or permissions of OER, the ability to Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute content for educational purposes. It is with great gratitude that I introduce the authors of the OER texts whose content was retained, reused, revised, and/or remixed in some way and contributed to this final product. In a few instances, I have also included the rationale for their OER text. Links to each of the original OER texts, their licenses, and peer reviews can be found in Appendix A.

Linda (Bruce) Hill, contributing author to College Success

Linda (Bruce) Hill is the director of distance learning at Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, where she works with graduate students and faculty to help them thrive in a global learning environment. Her career in education spans decades of technology growth and change, but is centered on a love of teaching and learning and on the rewards of continuing education. A lifelong learner herself, Linda earned a bachelor’s degree in radio, television and film at the University of Maryland College Park, and a master’s in education and human development at the George Washington University in a distance learning program that set standards for higher education offerings. Outside of her full-time work at Goucher, Linda freelances as a writer and instructional designer —pursuits that aligned her with Lumen Learning on the production of their College Success course, built heartily with open education resources and original writing. A favorite quote exemplifying her professional philosophy is from Arthur C. Clarke: “Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.”

Alise Lamoreaux, author of A Different Road To College: A Guide for Transitioning Non-traditional Students

Alise Lamoreaux has a long history of teaching non-traditional students who are preparing for the GED and transitioning to college. She teaches a class called, “Everything You Want to Know About College, Before You Start” along with Hybrid GED courses at Lane Community College, in Eugene, Oregon. Alise is known for her willingness to learn and use new technologies in the classroom, such as digital storytelling, learning management systems, and other online resources. She is an advocate of student success. Throughout the years, she has demonstrated her willingness to teach other professionals how they might also implement innovative technologies in the classroom. This year, she took on the challenge of writing an open source textbook, through a grant she received from openoregon.org, titled, A Different Road To College: A Guide for Transitioning Non-traditional Students. This free resource is designed to engage students in seeing themselves as college students and understanding the complexity of what that means to their lives, as well as helping to unlock the contextual complexities of the culture of college.

Phyllis Nissila, author of How to Learn Like a Pro!

Phyllis Nissila has taught Effective Learning and Study Skills classes in high schools and community colleges for over twenty years. She also teaches writing and college preparatory classes at Lane. Nissila has been a freelance and contracted writer for over thirty years, with credits including newspaper reportage, feature articles, and human interest/inspirational magazine articles and devotionals. She is an award-winning former humor (newspaper) columnist. She is the author of Sentence CPR, Breathing Life Into Sentences That Might As Well Be Pushing Up Daisies! (Prufrock Press/Cottonwood Press, grades 7-adult) and sells humor-based language arts lessons and worksheets through TeachersPayTeachers.com.

Thomas C. Priester, editor of Foundations of Academic Success: Words of Wisdom

A hope-inspired educator dedicated to helping others interact with the future, Thomas C. Priester holds a Doctor of Education degree in Executive Leadership from St. John Fisher College, a Master of Science degree in Student Personnel Administration from SUNY Buffalo State, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Secondary English Education from Fredonia (where he is also a member of the Alumni Board of Directors). Having worked previously in the areas of academic success, student life, student leadership development, orientation, academic advising, and residence life, Dr. Priester currently serves as the Director of Transitional Studies/Assistant Professor at SUNY Genesee Community College in Batavia, NY where he is also an advisor to the campus chapter of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, the chairperson of both the Academic Assessment and the Transitional Studies Committees, and a member of both the Institutional Effectiveness and the Academic Senate Curriculum Committees. Additionally, Dr. Priester is a faculty member in the Higher Education Student Affairs Administration graduate program at SUNY Buffalo State in Buffalo, NY, has taught conversational English at Fatec Americana in Americana, São Paulo, Brazil, and Academic Success at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, NY. Dr. Priester has served as a contributing chapter author for the books: Assessing Student Learning in the Community and Two-Year College (Stylus, 2013) and Examining the Impact of Community Colleges on the Global Workforce (IGI Global, 2015) and has most recently published the open access textbook: Foundations of Academic Success: Words of Wisdom (Open SUNY Textbooks, 2015).

Norma Cárdenas, Contributing Editor of Blueprint for Success in College and Career: Oregon Edition

Norma Cárdenas received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Amherst College and her master’s in Bicultural Studies and doctorate in Culture, Literacy, and Language from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Child, Youth, and Family Studies Program at Portland State University. She specializes in social justice education, race and ethnicity, and popular culture. Before joining PSU, she taught at Oregon State and Eastern Washington. As first-generation faculty, she helps students navigate new challenges, identify research opportunities to expand their skillset, and prepare for graduate school, internships, or jobs. She is the author of chapters and articles on identity, family, culture, and belonging. She has started to work in children’s literature, particularly picture book biography and historical fiction.

Linnea Spitzer, Contributing Editor of Blueprint for Success in College and Career: Oregon Edition

Linnea Spitzer is a long-time educator and student. She earned her a bachelor’s degree in Eastern European studies from the University of Washington in Seattle in 2000, a master’s degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) from Portland State University in 2008, and a doctorate in education from Portland State University in 2021 (it’s been a long journey!).

Linnea has spent much of her career teaching English and college readiness to international and multilingual students, where her work has focused on supporting student access to and success in college degree programs. She currently teaches at Portland State University in the College of Education and the Department of Applied Linguistics.

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