Keynote Speaker 2014:
Dr. Bruce Mallette retired on January 2, 2013 after more than 35 very active years in various leadership roles in higher education.
His last position was Vice President for Academic & Student Affairs (ASA) at the University of North Carolina General Administration. He served as the chief student affairs officer of the University, the Principal Investigator for the North Carolina College Access Challenge Grant, and was the liaison between General Administration and the 17 UNC institutions on issues primarily related to university policies regarding student affairs, financial aid, admissions, community college transfer, athletics, and student health, and was the primary education representative to the CFNC partnership. During his 4.5 years at UNC General Administration he also served as the system’s Interim Associate Vice President for Institutional Research & Analysis for 13 months.
Prior to joining the UNC system office, he was a Managing Director at RTI International for 4 years (known historically as Research Triangle institute). RTI is an $800 million non-profit research organization incorporated by NC State, Duke, and UNC-CH in 1958 but is a separately operated affiliate of these schools.
Prior to RTI he held various positions at NC State University for 19 years, including Vice Provost for Academic Administration, Associate Director of University Planning and Analysis, Special Assistant to the Dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and he was an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow in 1994-95.
He has been affiliated with our academic department since 1992 and is an Adjunct Associate Professor. He has taught, made guest appearances in classes, and sat on numerous dissertation committees. He received the 2010-2011 Distinguished Alumni Award from the Higher Education faculty and the Graduate Student Association in our department.
Prior to NC State, he worked for 5 years in Student Affairs in Residence Life and Judicial Affairs at Furman University in Greenville, SC and Berry College in Rome, GA. Berry College is one of the three traditional “work experience” campuses in the United States where students work extensively on campus.
He has been elected to leadership roles in professional organizations and also published in the higher education field.
In his “retirement” he is working ½-time with NCAIA (the North Carolina Association of Insurance Agents). NCAIA has been recognized by the NC Commissioner of Insurance for over 60 years as the “agent of record” for the State of North Carolina, including its agencies and the 17-campus UNC system.
Among the insurance policies facilitated by NCAIA are: student health insurance; intercollegiate athletics accident insurance; study abroad insurance for students and faculty, student internship liability insurance; medical malpractice for student health centers; and, dental school and vet school professional liability insurance. Dr. Mallette notes he helps NCAIA talk “higher education speak” while the other 8 FTE of staff there talk in “insurance-ez”.
Also, he is leading the exploration of an “academic pathway” for the study of risk management and insurance at the post-secondary level. Within the UNC System, there are business school undergraduate programs in risk management and insurance at ASU, ECU, and UNCC. In conjunction with the faculty leadership of these programs and the NC Community College System, they are “visioning” a pathway from the CCs to the 3 programs using the recently revised Comprehensive Articulation Agreement between the UNC BOG and the State Board of the Community Colleges. The goal: to educate a diverse set of students to be the next generation of industry leaders.
Dr. Mallette earned a B.A. (1975) and M.A.Ed. (1977) from Wake Forest University where he was an All-Academic ACC scholarship swimmer and co-captain of the 1974-75 team; and at one time or another in his 4 undergraduate years was a member of the judicial board; a columnist for the Old Gold & Black; a Freshman Advisor; and publicity director with the student community volunteerism group. His Master’s research thesis was on “The Relationship Between Personality Traits of Academically and Athletically Successful College Males.”
He has an Ed.D. (1988) from NC State in Educational Leadership & Program Evaluation with a minor in Public Administration and he participated in the HEA of that era. The title of his dissertation was “A Replication and Path Analytic Expansion of Tinto’s Model of Student Attrition”.
Personal Tidbits: While he has now been seriously “out of the water” for some 15 years (but he wants to wade back in), his Masters Swimming career over a 20-year period included 100 Top 10 national rankings, 15 #1 national rankings, 4 U.S. Masters Swimming records, and 1 World Masters Swimming Record. His father played on the 1950 Brooklyn Dodgers with Jackie Robinson. His wife, Julie, now also “retired”, was Associate Vice Provost for Scholarships & Student Aid at NC State for 20 years. Julie and Bruce each received the “Order of the Long Leaf Pine” from Governor Perdue for their service to the State of NC. And, Bruce has been a bone marrow donor.