AUSTIN, TX, September 4, 2018 — Unizin, a higher education membership-based consortium founded to improve learner experiences with digital teaching and learning services, announces the appointment of a Chief Executive Officer and Chief Academic Officer. This announcement comes directly after the announcement of Unizin’s statement on its’ Unizin Data Platform (UDP) and formation of its Security and Privacy Taskforces.
Aaron Neal joins Unizin as Chief Executive Officer, effective October 1, and Jill Buban, Ph.D., joins Unizin as Chief Academic Officer, effective September 17. “These appointments demonstrate Unizin’s commitment to its 25 member institutions and future goals for member engagement and expansion; product development; and teaching and learning initiatives,” said Rob Lowden, Unizin Interim Director and Board Member. “Unizin has made great progress to enable the goals for its members through integrating content, software, and data services at cloud-scale. I’m delighted to see these CEO and CAO appointments as Unizin grows its rapidly evolving services and expands membership. Unizin has evolved from a new startup organization to a more mature, production service level organization and as the organization evolves, so is the leadership team.”
In his role as CEO, Neal will lead all facets of the consortium into its next stages of growth, building upon the success of the organization over the last four years. Neal brings 30 years of public and private sector IT experience, the last 17 serving in multiple executive leadership roles at Indiana University, most recently as Director of Enterprise Software. Neal brings a wealth of experience with technology as well as great depth and experience in the use of technology in higher education. Neal has been instrumental in introducing technologies and solutions in support of the academic mission with data and analytics in successful efforts.
As Chief Academic Officer, Buban will oversee member engagement and growth, marketing and communications, and the Unizin Summit, as well as teaching & learning initiatives, including the expansion of academic research initiatives with the Unizin Data Platform. Most recently, Buban served as Sr. Director of Research & Innovation for the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) where she oversaw the creation and growth of the Research Center for Digital Learning and Leadership, as well as contributed to many organization-wide partnerships and programs. Previously she served as Assistant Provost at Post University where she led the transition of courses from textbooks to open educational resources (OER), and digital courseware. Buban holds a PhD in Education from Lesley University.
About Unizin
Unizin’s mission is to improve the learner experience with digital teaching and learning resources. Unizin is membership-based and governed by its Founding Member institutions as a nonprofit 501(c)(3). It is currently composed of 25 institutions and 915,000+ learners, making it one of the largest educational organizations in the country.