Get to know the President’s Leadership Development Program advisory board and staff at Case Western Reserve University.
Meet the Advisory Board of Directors
Scott Cowen, MBA, DBA
Dr. Scott Cowen served as interim president of Case Western Reserve University from September 2020 through June 2021. He served as the 14th president of Tulane University from July 1998 through June 2014. He was named one of the top college presidents in the nation by Time, and Newsweek twice declared Tulane, under his leadership, one of the ''Hottest Schools in America." Dr. Cowen is the recipient of several national awards, including the Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award and the TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education. He has been widely praised for helping to transform New Orleans' K-12 public schools and health care system after Hurricane Katrina. He served as a member of the White House Council for Community Solutions, which advised President Barack Obama on the needs of disconnected youth. Dr. Cowen is the author of Winnebagos on Wednesdays: How Visionary Leadership Can Transform Higher Education and The Inevitable City: The Resurgence of New Orleans and the Future of Urban America. He also serves as a senior advisor for the Boston Consulting Group. From 1975 to 1998, Dr. Cowen served as a faculty member and dean (1984 to 1998) of the Weatherhead School of Management at CWRU. Dr. Cowen received his bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut and his master's and doctorate in business administration from George Washington University.
Fred DiSanto
Fred DiSanto is the chairman and chief executive officer of Ancora. He became the chief executive officer in 2006 and chairman in 2014. DiSanto leads Ancora and its three registered investment advisors along with its broker dealer. Prior to joining Ancora, DiSanto served as the executive vice president and manager of the Fifth Third Bank's Investment Advisors Division overseeing investment management, private banking and trust and banking services. He served as president and chief operating officer of Maxus Investment Group from 1998 until December of 2000, which was subsequently sold to Fifth Third Bank in January 2001. In his role at Maxus, he was responsible for the marketing, sales and financial operations. He also served as managing partner at Gelfand Partners Asset Management from 1991 until its merger with Maxus Investment Group in 1997. DiSanto began his investment career in 1985 with McDonald Investments in institutional equity sales.
DiSanto is currently on the boards of The Eastern Company (EML) and Regional Brands, Inc. (RGBD). He is chair of the Board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University, former chairman of the Board of Regents of St Ignatius High School and former Chairman and current Trustee of the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. He is a past board member of Alithya (ALYA), Lorain National Bank (LNBB) and Park.view Federal Savings Bank (PVFC). Fred earned a bachelor degree in management science from Case Western Reserve University and an MBA from Case Western Reserve University, Weatherhead School of Management (Cleveland, Ohio).
Julie Louise Gerberding, MD, MPH
Julie Gerberding is executive vice president and chief patient officer at Merck & Co., where she is responsible for patient engagement and advocacy, population health, corporate responsibility, and ESG. She joined Merck in2010 as president of Merck Vaccines and led the company's efforts to make vaccines more available and affordable around the world. She left her tenured faculty position at the University of California, San Francisco in 1998 to join the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and then served as CDC Director from 2002-2009. She led the CDC through more than 40 emergency responses to public health crises, including anthrax bioterrorism, SARS, and natural disasters. She advises governments globally on urgent issues such as pandemic preparedness, AIDS, and antimicrobial resistance. She serves on the Boards of Cerner Corporation, CWRU, MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories, and the Bio Innovation Organization (BIO) Executive Committee. She has received numerous awards and honors, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Distinguished Service Award for her leadership in responses to anthrax bioterrorism and the September 11 attacks. She has been named to Forbes Magazine's 100 Most Powerful Women in the World and to TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2018, Julie received the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association Woman of the Year award and the eyeforpharma Lifetime Achievement award.
Joe Mandato
Joe Mandato has been an investor, executive and entrepreneur in the life sciences. He is a managing director of DeNovo Ventures and has led companies developing solutions to healthcare problems including Origin Medsystems, a developer of minimally invasive surgical devices acquired by Guidant Corporation, where he was a member of the founding management committee. He co-founded Gynecare, a women’s health spin-out of Guidant. He was CEO of Ioptex Research, a developer of intraocular lenses and was CEO of Cilco AG, Zug, Switzerland. He was a Captain in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corps. He holds a Doctor of Business Administration from Case. He is a Lecturer at Stanford University and held the Rev. Carlo Rossi Chair of Entrepreneurship at the University of San Francisco.
Jerry Sue Thornton, PhD
Dr. Thornton received her bachelor’s degree in English and speech from Murray State College in 1969, and her master’s degree in communications from Murray State University in 1970. She attended Northern Illinois University, and earned her PhD degree in educational administration at The University of Texas at Austin in 1983. She attended Harvard University's Institute for the Management of Lifelong Education in 1988.
Thornton taught at Earlington Junior High School, in Earlington, Kentucky in 1969; and at Murray High School, in Murray, Kentucky in 1970. The following year, she moved to River Grove, Illinois where she became an English faculty member at Triton College. She was promoted to assistant dean of arts and sciences at Triton College in 1978. In 1985, she became president of Lakewood Community College (now Century College) in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Thornton moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to serve as the first female president of Cuyahoga Community College in 1992. During her tenure, she led $300 million worth of renovation and construction projects, also increasing the college's foundation from $1.3 million to $40 million. In June 2013, Thornton retired as president of Cuyahoga Community College and became president of Dream Catcher Education Consulting.
Thornton's board service included membership on the board of Applied Industrial Technologies, Inc., National City Bank, Bridgestreet Worldwide, Inc., Republic Powdered Metals, Inc., American Family Insurance, FirstEnergy Corporation, Office Max, Barnes and Noble Education, Inc., and Parkwood Corporation; in addition to serving as co-chair of the 21st Century Commission on the Future of Community Colleges, on the board of visitors of the Marine Corps University, and on the Community College Advisory Board of Dynamic Campus, among others. Thornton's numerous awards and honors include four honorary doctorates from the College of St. Catherine, Youngstown State University, Baldwin Wallace University, and Cleveland State University. She was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame, and was awarded the American Council on Education Fellows' Mentor of the Year Award, the 2014 American Association of Community Colleges' Community College Leadership Award, the Diverse Champions Award by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 2014 Community Service Award for Outstanding Achievement. In 2013, Thornton was named one of the "Top 25 Women in Higher Education" by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education. In 2018, she received the City of Cleveland's Heritage Award; and the Del deWendt Award from the First Tee of Cleveland.
Ben Vinson III
Ben Vinson III was appointed provost and executive vice president at Case Western Reserve University on July 2, 2018, and is responsible for all facets of the academic programs and research of the university.
During his time at CWRU, Dr. Vinson has spearheaded the university's Think Big strategic planning initiative-which has received national attention for its innovative and inclusive planning process. He has also worked to increase collaboration and entrepreneurship on campus by naming an associate provost to the post of interprofessional education, research and collaborative practice; and by appointing a founding director for the Veale Institute for Entrepreneurship. He is Co-Pl of the Humanities in Leadership Learning Series (HILLS) program, funded by a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to promote leadership development and diversity in the humanities.
Dr. Vinson is an accomplished historian of Latin America, and the recipient of the 2019 Howard F. Cline Book Prize in Mexican History for his book, Before Mestizaje: The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico.
He is chairman of the board of the National Humanities Center and member of the board of the National Humanities Alliance. He serves on the advisory board for Dartmouth's Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies and serves on the board of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He is a former member of the University Council for the United States International University-Africa (USIU).
Additionally, Vinson serves on the Association of American Universities' (AAU) Advisory Board for Racial Equity in Higher Education and is a member of the AAU subcommittee on faculty advancement and tenure. He was a member of the Academy of Arts and Science's Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship, and currently chairs its subcommittee on higher education. He was elected vice president of the research division of the American Historical Association (AHA) in 2020 and is the elected president of the Conference on Latin American History (CLAH).
Before coming to CWRU, he served on the faculties of Barnard College and Penn State before joining Johns Hopkins as a professor of history and founding director of its Center for Africana Studies. At Johns Hopkins he went on to serve as a vice dean for centers, interdisciplinary studies and graduate education before becoming dean of George Washington University's Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Vinson earned a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and a doctorate from Columbia University. He has been awarded fellowships from the Fulbright Commission, National Humanities Center, Social Science Research Council, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Ford, Rockefeller and Mellon foundations.
Get to Know Our Staff
Andrea M. Hauser, PhD
Executive Director
216.368.1610
amh362@case.edu
Andrea Hauser was appointed as the inaugural executive director in February 2022. She earned a doctorate in Higher Education Administration from Bowling Green State University and is an alumna of Kent State University where she earned a master of education in Higher Education and Student Affairs and a bachelor of science in Integrated Social Studies Education. She also holds graduate certificates in Applied College Student Development & Counseling and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Northeastern University and Bowling Green State University, respectively. She has more than 10 years of experience in higher education, serving in both student and academic affairs. Her research focuses on college student identity development, student leadership development, and feminist research methods.