Lifetime and Partner Achievement Awards 

KC Greaney, MA, PhD, EdD
Former Director of Institutional Research
Santa Rosa Junior College

KC Greaney received a Bachelor of Arts in both History and Spanish from University of California, Berkeley, followed by a Master of Arts in History from University of California, San Diego, where she focused on United States Ethnic and Immigrant History. She then achieved a second Master of Arts in Higher Education and Organizational Change with a focus on College Access and Equity from University of California, Los Angeles, where she also earned her PhD. Her dissertation examined how college mediates upward mobility.

For over two decades, KC served in prominent institutional research, planning, and effectiveness (IRPE) roles at both Napa Valley College and Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC). During seven of those years, she also served as Executive Director for the California Community Colleges’ (CCC) Career & Technical Education Employment Outcomes Survey (CTEOS), which she helped develop from the initiation. Her leadership led to statewide deployment of CTEOS, which contributed substantially in assisting all CCCs to better understand their students’ success and to advocate for the important role career and technical education plays within our community college system.

In related work, KC has been recognized for contributing to the development of the statewide skills-builder metric, which led to her receiving the RP Group Award for Excellence in Regional/Statewide Research in 2016. She also served as a member of the Vocational Education Research & Accountability Technical (VERATAC) Advisory Committee. These contributions have had significant and positive impact on planning and policies related to CTE at individual colleges and throughout the state.

Through her leadership of the Office of Institutional Research at SRJC, the institution was able to better support students, faculty, staff, and the campus community during the devastating fires of 2017, as well as through the challenges faced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond these two prominent areas, KC has contributed in numerous other ways to the broader IRPE field. Some of the highlights include her work as a founding member of the North Bay Regional Consortium for The RP Group, as well as her service on the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), CCC Apply Steering Committee, and the Student Success Metrics Workgroup.

KC is a thoughtful connector and collaborator. She developed and implemented the SRJC Student Survey in 2001 for institutional planning purposes and shared both the tool and the findings with other colleges. She also served on a statewide project that developed an early Basic Skills Survey of Effective Practices. She developed and implemented the Citizen Researcher Campaign at SRJC that was featured in “Get Started…Data Coaching to Inform Guided Pathways Development.” Over the years, KC presented dozens of times at The RP Group’s RP and Strengthening Student Success conferences, as well as at CAIR, AIR, ACCCA, and CCCAOE events  to share her expertise with the IRPE field and broader CCC system.

KC has continued to expand her own education through her attendance at the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Fellows Program in Washington DC for training and then by presenting her learnings through The RP Group. Her community-minded spirit and service have added to the development of products that have been widely recognized and adopted, made significant contributions to policy, and provided overall leadership. She has continued to serve the community, even after her retirement from SRJC in 2019 by working on the “Statewide COVID-19 Impact Surveys of Students and Employees” among other projects.

We are so proud to honor and celebrate KC Greaney and her lifetime of achievements in service to the IRPE community and strengthening student success throughout the CCC system.

Barbara McNeice-Stallard, MS
Former Director, Research & Institutional Effectiveness
Mt. San Antonio College

With over 35 years of experience in higher education throughout Canada and the United States, Barbara McNeice-Stallard’s notable and varied career is deeply founded in her own education. She holds a Master of Science in Health Behavior and a Bachelor of Science in Honors Kinesiology from the University of Waterloo. She further developed her expertise through varied research work projects with the Canadian Department of National Defense and Clarke Institute of Psychiatry, as well as research and teaching positions at University of Waterloo, McMaster University, Centennial College, and Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC). 

For 20 years, Barbara served as the Director of Research and Institutional Effectiveness at Mt. SAC and worked on multiple committees and visiting teams for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). She provided her expertise in numerous state and national research endeavors, all while focusing heavily on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Barbara has earned many accolades for her work with the California Association for Institutional Research (CAIR) as well as other national, state, local, and regional agencies in the areas of institutional research. She contributed to many research publications and has served as an organizer, presenter, and facilitator for IRPE activities throughout the state. The employees and Board members at colleges across the state had a profound impact on Barbara’s IRPE skills as did her IRPE husband, Claire Stallard.

During her tenure on The RP Group’s Board of Directors, Barbara held the position of President and consulted on numerous research and planning projects. She worked to create institutional review board (IRB) processes for many colleges and contributed her expertise in program review, integrated planning, and other institutional effectiveness issues. Barbara has been a key contributor on many initiatives and programs for The RP Group and was a Steering Committee member and presenter at the annual Strengthening Student Success Conference for over 15 years. She considers her time with The RP Group as pivotal to her success.

Barbara is one of those leaders whom many researchers have sought out for guidance and who graciously shares her knowledge, skills, expertise, and time freely. Barbara has mentored many new researchers as they navigate the often overwhelming research environment of the California Community Colleges (CCC) system. Over the years, she has encouraged many researchers to take risks and try new professional opportunities to advance themselves and their work towards improving student success in the CCC system.

Among her peers and colleagues, Barbara is known for her courage, initiative, and leadership. She has a great ability to navigate potentially explosive debates, while holding ground for the issues and people she cares about. She is a collaborative problem-solver who sees things through to the end. Barbara is well-regarded in the IRPE community for her in-depth knowledge and skills in research, evaluation, planning, accountability, equity, assessment (both learning outcomes and placement testing), and accreditation. She is a highly motivated person of integrity and, even past retirement, continues to mentor her colleagues as they take on leadership positions around the state.

We are so proud to celebrate Barbara McNeice-Stallard and her lifetime of achievements as a leader, administrator, faculty, staff, coach, mentor, colleague, and friend.

Dr. Robert Gabriner
Co-Director, Leading from the Middle
RP Group

We are proud to have honored the following individuals with Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2016.

Dr. Robert Gabriner has been a faculty member, administrator, and leader in the California community colleges for over 40 years. He has held a variety of leadership positions in the RP Group since 1995, and is currently the co-director of the Leading from the Middle program.

He was a co-founder of the Strengthening Student Success conference in 2005 and the founding director of the Center for Student Success (CSS). Under Dr. Gabriner’s leadership, CSS completed more than 15 research projects over a six-year period for colleges and the Chancellor’s Office, drawing on the expertise of IRP professionals in the community college system.

Dr. Gabriner is also recently retired as professor of educational leadership and director of the Educational Leadership Doctoral Program at San Francisco State University. Previously, he served as Vice Chancellor and Dean of Research, Planning, and Grants at City College of San Francisco for 19 years.

Dr. Gabriner was also a history instructor in the Peralta Community College District for 22 years, and while a faculty member, served as president of the Community College Council of the California Federation of Teachers for eight years. Throughout his career, Dr. Gabriner has been a leader in community college reform initiatives, including AB 1725 (1988), the Community College Accountability Act (2004), and the Student Success Task Force (2011).

Dr. Linda Umbdenstock
Administrative Dean of Planning
Long Beach City College (retired)

Dr. Linda Umbdenstock’s professional career in education spans nearly 40 years, primarily in community college research and planning, as well as teaching and research for K-12 and a postgraduate medical school.

Her association with the RP Group, which she helped institute, began with its predecessor, the Southern California Community College Institutional Research Association (SCCCIRA), where she provided leadership in innovations in classroom assessment research, college effectiveness, and data systems to support research and decision-making.

A past president of the RP Group, Dr. Umbdenstock was a co-initiator of the Planning Guides, the California Assessment Initiative, the Student Learning Outcomes Coordinators network project, and the Strengthening Student Success Conferences.

She also served as the Executive Director of Hewlett Leaders in Student Success. Guided by her values regarding equity, learning, collaboration, and a systems/networks approach including multi-perspectives for decision-making, Dr. Umbdenstock has contributed not only to a variety of state commissions, but also gave over 100 presentations and workshops to community groups and regional, state, national, and international conferences. She was elected an inaugural member of the Alverno College Vanguard Society for her accomplishments and received the Lifetime Achievement POWER Award for outstanding contribution to the field of student learning outcomes assessment.

Jerry Rudmann
Psychology Faculty, Irvine Valley College and
Institutional Researcher, Coastline College (Retired)

In the early 2000s, Jerry attended an accreditation workshop on student learning outcomes (SLOs). Serving as a Board member for the RP Group, he learned about RP's plans to build a series of statewide workshops on making sense of SLOs and assessing them. Jerry has been working with SLOs inside and outside his own institution for years.

On the outside, he is currently serving on the American Psychological Association's task force that is charged with updating the learning outcomes for the Baccalaureate in psychology.

In rolling out the process at his own college, Coastline Community College, he fondly remembers his work with the Student Services staff. After introducing SLOs to this group at a local Claim Jumper restaurant, he interviewed each service leader over the next two weeks to develop service SLOs.

In one such conversation, the Extended Opportunity Program and Services (EOPS) Director stated that the singular, most important outcome for their work with students was to build students' confidence. As a psychologist, Jerry had known about Albert Bandura's work on self-efficacy, but after that conversation, Jerry did a lot of sleuthing and learning about related concepts such as self-regulation, self-hope and goal clarity.

When the EOPS director hosted a meeting with other EOPS directors in the region, Jerry persuaded them to launch a multi-college outcomes study. The study found that students who received EOPS services reported greater academic and career goal clarity, and higher academic hope and self-efficacy and that these positive outcomes correlated with higher GPA and retention rates.

Soon, the study was expanded to include Disabled Student Programs and Services (DSPS). The findings were eventually published in a peer-reviewed journal. For Jerry, this experience led him to realize that there are alternative definitions and many levels of student success. In short, everything counts.

Julie Slark
Assistant Vice Chancellor of Education Services
Rancho Santiago Community College (Retired)

Julie Slark began her career as an institutional researcher in 1977. At that time, aside from a few learning outcomes studies, such as the Learning Assessment Retention Consortium's basic skills student learning outcomes study (which Julie directed), the trend of focusing on student "inputs" and occasionally student achievement rather than student learning continued well into the 1990s.

In 1998, the ACCJC asked Julie, who was serving as the President of the Research and Planning (RP) Group, to support the nascent student learning outcomes (SLOs) efforts by representing the RP Group to co-sponsor several assessment institutes.

Realizing that a shift was taking place and that colleges would need greater support, the co-sponsoring organizations, led by Julie and several colleagues, next designed a series of statewide workshops to meet the colleges where they were, literally and figuratively. Since then, as colleges have translated the student learning outcomes process into their own college efforts, Julie has continued to be involved in a variety of activities, including participating as a program co-coordinator for the annual Student Success Conference, serving as a mentor for the WASC Assessment Workshop, and providing workshops for colleges, to support student learning outcomes.