Randall Fielding, AIA
Chairman, Fielding Nair International, LLC
Randall Fielding, AIA, is the Chairman and Founding Partner of Fielding Nair International, LLC (FNI), an award-winning school planning and design firm with offices in Minneapolis, Tampa, Madison and Melbourne, Australia. The firm has consultations in 23 states around the U.S. and 26 countries. Randy oversees FNI’s primary mission to improve learning by serving as a world leader in the creation of new and renovated educational campuses that are in consonance with best practice and research.

Randy’s achievements have earned him more than a dozen design awards from the American Institute of Architects, The Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI), the American Association of School Administrators, and School Planning and Management Magazine. He is internationally recognized as an authority on innovative school design and received the CEFPI Planner of the Year Award in 2007 — the most prestigious honor of any individual in the field of educational design. He has been selected to serve as an architect, consultant, presenter and/or keynote speaker in Australia, Azerbaijan, Canada, Cayman Islands, Chile, Finland, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Portugal, Qatar, Singapore, The Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Sri Lanka, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States.

One of Randy’s “signatures” is his ability to come down off of the podium, sharing ideas with heads of state, educators, and children with equal passion. This spirit of sharing extends to two million people each year, through DesignShare.com, an online forum for innovative learning environments that Randy founded in 1998. He continues to serve as DesignShare’s editorial director, but the focus of his work is to lead communities in the design of environmentally responsive campuses that foster personalized learning and strong connections to the community.

Randy’s design work leverages more than 500 case studies from 30 countries — the largest library of innovative school designs in the world. The interactive planning and design process pioneered by FNI is also grounded in a seminal book that Randy co-authored with Prakash Nair, entitled The Language of School Design. The book establishes key learning modalities for success in the post-information society, and provides a series of design patterns to support these modalities. Randy uses the design patterns as a tool in evaluating existing and proposed facilities, and as a launching point for developing customized solutions for each individual community, campus, school or district that he works with.

In addition to serving as a lead design architect, teamwork underpins all of Randy’s work, which takes him around the world to collaborate with public and private institutions, educators, developers, and local architects. Whether it’s a high school near ground zero in New York City, a series of vocational schools for the tsunami-damaged areas of Sri Lanka, a school for at-risk students in Minneapolis, a K-12 campus in Indonesia, or a college preparatory school in Switzerland, he finds more commonalties in each community than differences.

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Prakash Nair, REFP
Partner, Fielding Nair International
Prakash Nair is a futurist, a visionary planner and architect with Fielding Nair International, one of the world’s leading change agents in school design. He is also the Managing Editor of DesignShare.com which attracts over one million visitors each year. He is the recipient of several international awards including the prestigious CEFPI MacConnell Award, the top honor worldwide for school design.

He has written extensively in leading international journals about school design and educational technology and their connection to established educational research. He is also the author of two guidebooks on school planning including the landmark 2005 publication, The Language of School Design which he co-authored with his partner Randall Fielding.

Prior to co-founding Fielding Nair International, Prakash worked for 10 years as Director of Operations for a multi-billion dollar school construction program for New York City.

In 2003, Prakash completed a project with the University of Wisconsin on a Rockefeller Foundation-funded grant to develop international best practice standards for tomorrow’s schools. He also led the effort to develop a new research-based tool to evaluate the educational effectiveness of schools. This tool, now being tested by schools and governments in the United States, Australia and Singapore will revolutionize the way we look at how school buildings and campuses actually work to support teaching and learning.

Prakash has served as the Northeast Regional President of the Council of Educational Facility Planners International and serves on the ICOPE Task Force — New York City’s Independent Commission on Public Education.

FNI has serviced projects in 26 countries on 5 continents. Prakash has served as the Managing Principal, school planning and design consultant, presenter and/or keynote speaker for clients in Australia (five states), Canada, Finland, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, The Netherlands, Spain, U.A.E., U.K. and the United States.

By staying current with the research as well as national and international social, economic and cultural trends, Prakash is always able to bring best practice thinking from many disciplines and fields to bear on education-related problems and projects. This approach has helped education clients save millions of dollars while still achieving or exceeding their schedule and quality expectations.

Prakash’s signature talent lies in his ability to communicate his passion for a new approach to education across the globe. He has consistently built strong partnerships with local firms, helped client communities visualize their future, built consensus for uniquely tailored solutions, and helped execute them successfully.

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Jeffery A Lackney PhD, AIA, REFP
Partner, Educational Planner and Architect
Fielding Nair International

Dr. Jeff Lackney has committed his entire 20-year practice as a licensed architect to creating high-quality visionary learning environments for children and youth around the world. Jeff is dedicated to authentic community involvement in school planning, believing that the best solutions come from working in concert with people to identify desires and expectations for the future of education, and building on the creative potential of the surrounding community culture. Currently he consults nationally with FNI as an educational facility planner advocating innovative vision-driven approaches to planning for education. In addition to working on various projects in the USA, Jeff is actively working on projects in Australia, Thailand, New Zealand and the Cayman Islands.

In addition to his practical experience in school design, Jeff has conducted extensive research, published and presented internationally on the influence of the physical setting on learning, assessing the fit between educational programs and older buildings, community-based planning, action research, planning for small learning communities, the role of the physical setting in mediating school climate and culture, post-occupancy evaluation in schools, and neighborhood schools planning. He is co-author of a new textbook entitled “Educational Facilities Planning: Leadership, Architecture and Management”, published by Allyn and Bacon in 2006. He published a highly proclaimed digest entitled “Thirty-three Educational Design Principles for Schools and Community Learning” for the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities (NCEF) http://schoolstudio.engr.wisc.edu/33principles.html that outlines innovative strategies and trends in educational design. He work has attracted the attention of media outlets CNN.com, NY Times, BBC Radio, National Educational Association (NEA) and Edutopia.

Prior to joining FNI, Jeff was assistant professor within the Department of Engineering Professional Development at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he conducted continuing education courses in architecture and facility management. He manages several websites dedicated to collaborative design and action research at School Design Research Studio. Visit http://schoolstudio.engr.wisc.edu and http://schoolstudio.typepad.com. From 1998 to 2000, he served as the first director of the Educational Design Institute (EDI) at Mississippi State University, an interdisciplinary collaborative between the College of Education and the School of Architecture that promotes innovative practices in educational facility planning and design. He also worked as educational planning consultant with Hammel Green & Abrahamson, Inc. in Minneapolis, MN from 1997-1998, and served as assistant director of the Johnson Controls Institute for Environmental Quality in Architecture at the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee from 1995-1998.

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Jay J. Litman, AIA
Senior Planning Consultant and Architect
Fielding Nair International

Jay J. Litman, AIA has a deep understanding and appreciation of the educational challenges facing both children and adults within the learning environment. His 30-years of professional experience has focused primarily on the planning and design of educational facilities for children, university facilities, public libraries, institutional projects and the reuse and rehabilitation of historic structures. His project background also extends to urban and campus planning.

He is deeply involved in the emerging theories of project-based, collaborative learning that is reshaping the language of school design. His evolution towards a project-based, collaborative educational model grew from his personal interest in the education of hearing impaired children using an “inclusion” model. The emerging theories of the time mandated fundamental changes in the design of the classroom environment such as; learning in smaller groups, working collaboratively on project based assignments, creating multiple modes of learning within one classroom as well as paying attention to acoustics and lighting. It became immediately apparent that the current 100-year old factory model for public education was highly resistant to change at the most fundamental levels.

Jay focused first on changing the model through design intervention by studying and improving acoustics, lighting and adjustments to the configuration of the classroom. In the design of new schools he utilized the “House Plan” model that created small learning communities of 100-students around a cluster of classrooms and labs. He is a founding member of the Rhode Island Chapter of the A. G. Bell Association for the Hearing Impaired and was involved on the RI Department of Education’s “Oral Education Task Force” in development of the “Rhode Island Strategic Plan for Children who are deaf or Hard of Hearing”

As Senior Planning Consultant and Architect with FNI, Jay advocates a workshop driven approach for the design of new schools and community campuses both in the United States and internationally. Jay is known for his “roll up the sleeves” approach in working directly with client and stakeholder groups in an interactive manner through drawings and discussions to conceive and develop design concepts right in front of the group.

Jay is presently working on a public school Master Plan for Middletown, Rhode Island where the FNI team has recommended consolidation of their current aged facilities into a lower school and an upper school campus through the radical rehabilitation of older school structures combined with new construction. In Serpong, Indonesia Jay is involved in the design of a new 1,400 student campus for a private academy (K-12), coordinating the FNI team on the design of nine distinct buildings including six Small Learning Communities a Global Learning Center, Design Arts Technology facility and a Health and Fitness Complex.

Jay also has a unique specialization in the planning and design of public and academic libraries. In his career he has designed over sixteen public and university library projects. His design for the Warwick Public Library represented a radical departure from the accepted design template for a large public library. The Library is anchored around a linear spine or promenade that links a private cafe, public meeting spaces, an outdoor garden and various library departments, much like an open mall. The high level of public acceptance and use (over 500,000 visits per year and increasing), out of town use, and visits from other library planning groups is a testament to the library’s success. Jay has presented papers on Library design at various conferences over the years including the “The Beauty Thing” and “Renovating the Small Public Library” at annual meetings of the New England Library Association. He has been a featured speaker at the Art Librarians Association of New England and he is a long standing member of the State Library Board of Rhode Island.

The approach to collaborative, project based learning and best practices of modern library design have recently come together in an FNI pilot project for Middletown, RI with a radical redesign of the Gaudet Middle School Library. The new design will expand the library’s ability to support many modalities of learning in a project based, collaborative atmosphere. Even the design of the book stacks is uniquely configured to accommodate cave type spaces for small group interaction. The new Library will offer multiple environments for classroom groups as well as a quiet refuge for individuals. Since furniture for this type of collaborative interaction does not exist, Jay developed prototypical designs to accommodate the expanded educational requirements. The new Gaudet Middle School Library will enable the teachers to fulfill the 21^st century mission of a school library, which is to teach children how to search for and recognize reliable, quality information from available global databases and to teach students how to collaborate effectively.

Prior to joining FNI Jay owned and managed a small 10-person practice that focused on Historic Preservation, Libraries and Schools. In 1995 Jay merged his firm with a large, regional multi-disciplined A/E practice where he served as Associate Director of Architecture. Jay secured and designed projects for many educational and institutional clients such as the University of Rhode Island, Brown University and the Acela program for Amtrak as well as several multiple school public school and public library projects. Notable projects included the Coastal Policy Institute at URI, the Warwick Public Library, and several middle and elementary schools. In late 1998 Jay left the A/E firm to help open and grow the Providence office of another Architecture practice from a staff of three to twenty-one professionals. As Senior Associate he marketed, secured, designed and managed a wide variety of institutional and academic clients. Key projects at this firm included the new Jesse M. Smith Library, the redesign of the Newport Public Library, Club Acela for Amtrak, and the award winning Hotel Providence and Temple Habonim.

After receiving his professional degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design Mr. Litman worked for Mitchell/Giurgola Architects in New York City, Graham Gund in Cambridge, MA and Earl Flansburgh and Graham/Meus in Boston, MA. Notable project experience included the East Campus Master Plan for MIT, The Health Services & Technology Management laboratories at MIT, the Friuli Elementray School in Aviano, Italy, and the Boston Museum School. Jay served as project architect for the Emerson College Library and their Performing Arts School.

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Michael A.van Hamel, BNA PhD
Senior Project Architect, Fielding Nair International
Vision, energy and a high level of design and technical expertise characterizes Michael’s 20 year career. The combination of these qualities has led to success in handling complex projects in a wide range of environments. His diverse experiences have exposed him to international approaches to educational architecture and interior architecture. Michael’s work has required him to communicate effectively within all stages of a project, serving not only as an architect but also liaison, consultant, and negotiator. Most importantly, his working partnerships lead to projects success and client satisfaction.

With an extensive educational background ranging from Universiteit v. Amsterdam to Princeton University, Michael holds advanced degrees in architecture and a PhD in environmental psychology. He is an international architect with registration in the European Union and is a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design.

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Isaac Williams
Senior Planning Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Isaac Williams consults with Fielding Nair International around the world. Isaac gained considerable professional experience designing innovative learning environments while collaborating with FNI as an architect at Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn on several school facilities, including the development of four high school academies for East Side High School in Newark, New Jersey.

Isaac’s talent lies in his ability to locate within the program, schedule and budget opportunities for innovative architecture that supports learning. In addition, his background in graphic design and web design enables him to support FNI’s unique Pattern Language Method to powerfully communicate the importance of design to clients and stakeholders.

Isaac completed his graduate studies at the University of Maryland on a university fellowship and graduated with numerous distinctions including the AIA Henry Adams Medal for excellence in architecture.

As an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, Williams’ research investigates how existing school facilities can be modified through architectural interventions to promote new learning modalities, and a stronger connection to the community. More broadly the research explores how the school building itself can be a three-dimensional textbook, and didactically support learning.

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Bert Taylor
Senior Designer, Fielding Nair International
Bert Taylor brings planning concepts to life in vibrant 3-dimensional form. In contrast to the often sterile computer-generated renderings of contemporary buildings, Bert develops colorful, varied interior and exterior spaces that support and express more than 20 learning modalities. He is both a skilled spatial inventor and collaborator, bringing the ideas of educators, planners, interior designers, and architects into reality.

High-profile projects with Bert’s signature include the 1,400-student K-12 Sinarmas International School in Indonesia, Scotch Oakburn Middle School in Launceston, Australia, and the Georgetown Primary School, Cayman Islands. His work on the Einstein Studio at Western Heights Academy in Geelong Australia and Da Vinci Studios at Blair Street School in Melbourne set new standards for interdisciplinary learning environments for science and art.

Bert gradated from the School of Fine Arts at the University of Minnesota. He has more than 20 years of experience in 3-dimensional design and rendering. His role includes architectural and interior design, custom furniture and equipment design, and exterior landscape elements. He serves as FNI’s top gun in three dimensional modeling and rendering.

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Kristina Fielding
Interior Design Director
Kris develops color palettes, interior finishes, and furnishing plans that epitomize the stimulus-rich environments demanded by 21^st century learning environments. Laura Porter-Jones, Director of Paideia Academy, wrote of Kris’s work: “The school is absolutely beautiful — in 15 years I have never been privileged to work in a facility half as lovely as this one. Thank you!”

Kris has a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Minnesota, and more than 20 years of experience in interior architecture and design. Kris’s educational designs include: Cayman Islands High Schools and Primary Schools; Scotch Oakburn College, Launceston, Tasmania; Advanced Learning Environment Solutions, Jacksonville, Florida; Community Trade & Business Center, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Sage Academy, River Heights Charter School, Great River Montessori School, and Paideia Academy in Minnesota.

Interior design is inseparable from effective architecture, and Kris works seamlessly with both FNI and partner architects. She has a powerful ability to visualize finished spaces from preliminary design sketches, and integrates her work with structural elements, lighting, and landscape.

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Professor Stephen Heppell
Senior Education/ICT Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Prof. Stephen Heppell is a Senior Consultant with FNI advising clients on a wide range of education and ICT issues. Stephen’s work extends into multiple, but overlapping, domains:

“Professor Stephen Heppell: the UK’s leading on-line education guru” Channel 4 TV 1999

Stephen pioneered collaborative virtual learning spaces. Past projects range from the Guinness Book of Record’s largest internet learning project in the world last century, through a community of 20,000 headteachers to the worldwide Think.com. A string of very-large-scale projects showed and still show just how seductive online learning communities could be and he started these in the pre-web days of the 1980s.

“The father of ICT, Stephen Hepell” think:lab blog 2007

In Architecture and Design his pioneering research work for CABE and RIBA redefined the scope of learning spaces, largely informed by the emerging pedagogies in his virtual spaces. He is involved in the building, or redevelopment, of a mass of learning spaces worldwide, from community and corporate, through to Higher Education and of course a good number of radical, effective and seductive schools.

“when I finally spotted him, Stephen Heppell didn’t look at all like I imagined. This geek of geeks, this net-head of all times, this revolutionary who is yanking the British education system out of its Victorian slumber and shaping it for the digital information age, surely it couldn’t be this genial fellow before me with his whitening Father Christmas beard and Hush Puppy fashion sense” Design Magazine

In 2008 Stephen still does “geeky“. Pioneering projects have consistently reached out for the early adoption of people-power technologies, like Hypercard, into learning. Pioneering CD ROM projects in the 80s led onwards onwards to hand held projects - like the radical eVIVA project with QCA using mobile phones to capture learner narrative in a formal viva.

“Europe’s leading online education expert” Microsoft 2006

(Almost) finally, at the centre of all this, Stephen carries a significant policy portfolio supporting a range of front running nations worldwide. His work ranges from horizon scanning for the DfES/DCSF through to what can only be described as a full policy revolution in the Caribbean. As well as his own policy consultancy heppell.net ltd he sits on a small number of corporate boards and is chair of trustees for the charity “Inclusion Trust” with its remarkable Notschool.net project.

“The most influential academic of recent years in the field of technology and education” Department for Education and Skills (DfES), UK, 2006

But everyone who knows Stephen well, will also know his passion for sailboat racing - from coaching the UK Mirror Class Squad to a World Championship win in Kingston, Canada to his annual campaign around the UK’s Solent and East Coast in his rather high tech (!) yacht Cracker with partner, friends and family. “Sailing” says Stephen, “is what I do - the rest is a hobby”.

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Annalise Gehling
Educational Planning Consultant
Annalise Gehling is a Melbourne-based teacher, geographer and designer and serves as FNI’s Associate Educational Planner. In her first year in this role, Annalise has researched and authored a detailed critique of the Cayman Islands’ school environments, acted as chief planner for a school library refurbishment, written a book introduction for the School Libraries Association of Victoria, and played a key role in FNI’s School Planning contracts in Victoria, Tasmania, New Zealand and the Cayman Islands. In addition, Annalise has had a number of speaking engagements for Australian educators’ associations.

Annalise is quickly developing as the firm’s expert on its trademark EFEI assessment tool and will be working directly with a number of architects around the world to seamlessly integrate education and space design best practice into Australian schools. She is also responsible for educational planning services in the area of curriculum assessment and development — particularly in the arena of creating schools as 3-dimensional textbooks and integrating the actual planning process into the school’s curriculum.

Her work with FNI draws upon her big-picture educational philosophy, her broad understanding of educational literature and her varied personal experiences. Annalise earned a Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Adelaide, Australia, in 2002. Her excellent results in majors of Geography, and Media and Communication showcased her talents as a spatial and linguistic thinker. After working as a graduate in the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Annalise turned to her passion for education and completed a Bachelor of Teaching (Primary and Secondary) at Deakin University in November 2006.

Annalise is a member of the Australian College of Educators, the Primary English Teachers’ Association (PETA) and the Australian Literacy Educators’ Association (ALEA).

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Tiffany Green, M.Ed
Educational Planner
Tiffany Green is a Minneapolis-based Education Consultant, Designer, and Education Policy Advocate.

Tiffany earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics in 1998 from Vanderbilt University in Nashville TN. She received a Masters in Education and Technology from the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University in 2002. Tiffany’s natural talent for design was uncovered while working as a Flooring Consultant alongside ASID Interior Designers in Nashville. Growing up in Chicago IL also spurred Tiffany’s love of architecture.

FNI will draw on Tiffany’s diverse experiences in design, sales, community outreach, parental engagement, policy development, project management, and creating collaborative partnerships. Tiffany has a broad understanding of educational literature and high efficacy for technology. As an advocate for School Choice, Tiffany sees School Design as the next frontier...“Aesthetic variety within schools is equally as important as having ones choice of schools.”

Tiffany was formerly the Policy Aide to Minneapolis City Council Vice President, Robert Lilligren. Tiffany is a founder and co-Project Manager for the Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) in Minnesota. Tiffany serves on the board of Community Action of Minneapolis and Resources for Child Caring. Tiffany is a member of BAEO, Toastmasters International and the Minnesota Citizens League.

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Jennifer Lamar
Designer and Planner
Jennifer Lamar strives to create spaces that reflect the community’s values, needs, and functions. She believes color, light, and comfort are essential to productive environments and that spaces must be flexible to react to the ever-changing needs of the learning community. She also believes that learning should be fun and that the design should support active learning. With FNI, she has served as a design consultant on several projects including the three elementary schools in Medford, Oregon and the Georgetown Primary School in the Caymans.

She received her Master of Interior Design degree from the University of Florida’s College of Design, Construction and Planning. Her studies cumulated in a thesis paper titled Investing action research as a planning and designing approach: A post-occupancy evaluation of University of Florida College of Law’s Legal Information Center. She loves the collaborative process of design and the ideas that emerge from people working together as a team. She hopes to utilize these ideas in designing high-quality school environments to satisfy the users and support their day-to-day functions. By having a high level of participation from teachers, parents, administrators, and the students, positive changes will develop and lead to creating inspirational learning environments.

Previous experience includes working with a Boston-based architectural firm that focused on educational design and with Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum (HOK) on various commercial projects. She also has a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Theater and a minor in English from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. She has also studied in London with the prestigious Shakespeare Programme, where she participated in acting workshops with masters from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

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Gareth Long
Senior Education Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Gareth Long is an Senior Education Consultant with extensive experience in the UK and the Cayman Islands. He has operated at the highest strategic levels of education transformation, and has been very successfully in leading secondary schools in both countries.

In addition, Gareth has worked extensively with some of the world’s leading authorities to propel education into the 21^st century, including Professor Stephen Heppell, Prakash Nair, and many other leading architects specializing in school design from both the United States and Canada. He speaks at conferences and workshops and has been the subject of extensive media exposure.

In his most recent ‘visit’ to the Cayman Islands as a Strategic Development Advisor (Education), Gareth reported directly to the Minister of Education and Permanent Secretary. He was deeply involved with every aspect of the rapid holistic transformation of the entire education system, and led many effective large scale initiatives, including work on the design of ‘cutting edge’ new secondary and primary learning environments. He also led the very successful transformation of a large secondary school into four smaller schools on one campus. The whole Cayman Islands ‘story’ of education transformation has attracted the attention of Ministers of Education and senior officers from around the world.

Gareth’s services are in very high demand among many clients, including a multi-national company deeply involved in the UK ‘Building Schools of the Future’ initiative. He holds a master’s degree in Education Management, as well as the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers (NPQH) and the Leadership Programme for Serving Headteachers qualification (LPSH).

Alongside all of his qualifications and attention that comes his way, Gareth remains passionate about ensuring that we provide students with the very best educational opportunities that we can make available to them. He even continues to write a regular blog that is widely read around the world, which covers all sorts of things that catch his eye. Finally, while he loves his work, and has declared that some of his recent jobs have been the ‘best in the education world’, he also strongly believes in the importance of a life outside of work, especially with his young family.

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Frank M. Locker, Ph.D., AIA, REFP
Senior Planning Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Dr. Locker was recognized as the Council of Educational Facilities Planners International (CEFPI) Planner of the Year in 1999, the highest honor in the educational planning industry. Frank’s innovative work in education, planning and architectural design over 25 years strengthens his role as a team leader on FNI projects.

Frank is Senior Planning Consultant at FNI by special arrangement with DeJONG-LOCKER, where he is a principal. His broad-ranging experience in large district planning and individual school design facilitates innovative solutions to projects at every scale. In earlier work he was Vice President of DeJONG, and led more than 30 projects, including visioning workshops, master plans, and the development of educational facility specifications. Before joining DeJONG, he was a partner, designer, and lead educational planner at the award-winning PDT Architects in Portland, Maine. Frank’s unique background interrelates conceptual planning and architectural design — a perfect match for FNI’s integrated planning and design process.

His innovative work is continually recharged through keynote presentations and teaching. Recently he has taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education program; earlier at Kansas State University; University of Edinburgh, Scotland; and the Boston Architectural College. Recent keynote presentations include: Linking Student Success to School Facilities, New England School Development Council, Massachusetts; School of the Future, BuildBoston Convention, Boston; and Goldfish and Water, Council of Educational Facilities Planners International, Australia Chapter Conference, Brisbane.

Frank’s article Flexible Facilities, published by DesignShare in 2003 and also in the CEFPI Educational Facility Planner, made a key contribution to the field. In a world characterized by constant educational reform and curriculum change, Frank’s seminal work on flexible, adaptable school facilities remains a landmark on the subject.
http://www.designshare.com/index.php/articles/flexible-school-facilities

Frank has collaborated with FNI colleagues Randy Fielding, Prakash Nair, Jeff Lackney and Susan Wolff as a review team member for the DeignShare awards program since the program’s inception in 2000. Together, the team has redefined the guidelines for effective learning environments on a global scale.

Contact Dr. Frank Locker

Susan J. Wolff, Ed. D.
Senior Planning Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Dr. Wolff is a Senior Planning Consultant with Fielding Nair International. She serves currently as the Dean of Instruction at Columbia Gorge Community College, located in The Dalles, Oregon. Prior to this position, Susan directed the Professional Development System at Oregon State University and coordinated the national research project, New Designs for Career and Technical Education at the Secondary and Postsecondary Levels. The latter project was included in the original scope of the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, a five-university consortium funded through the U. S. Department of Education. Wolff has been a community college or university instructional administrator for over 25 years. Dr. Wolff is well known for her coalition building among education, business, industry, and community leaders. Other areas of specialty include training, workforce and economic development; distance learning and instructional technology; faculty development; continuing education; and program development.

The focus of her doctoral research was in the design features of the physical learning environment that support collaborative, project-based learning, http://www.designshare.com/Research/Wolff/Project_Learning.htm and led to the formation of her own business, Wolff Designs. Dr. Wolff has worked with school districts, community colleges, and four-year institutions of higher education across the country in educational and facilities planning including master facility planning, pre-design, design, and renovation projects. Her work in this area and in career and technical education has resulted in several publications and invitations to present and chair conferences, both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Wolff is a member of the American Association of Community Colleges, National Council of Instructional Administrators, Association of Career and Technical Education, National Council of Workforce Education, and the Council of Educational Facility Planners, International. Susan has been invited by the American Institute of Architects to be a juror for the 2005 School Design Awards, was a juror for the Washington State Council of Educational Facility Planners school design awards in 2004, has been a reviewer for the Design Share/School Construction News design awards the last three years, http://www.designshare.com/articles/article.asp?article=103, and co-chaired the American Institute of Architects Committee on Architecture for Education national conference in 2004. Two of the projects Susan has participated in, the Canby High School Applied Technology Center and Cy-Fair Community College, have received several national and international awards.

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Dr. Arthur Shapiro
Senior Education Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Dr. Arthur Shapiro has been a high school, middle school, and elementary teacher, a senior high school principal, director of secondary education twice, general assistant superintendent, and superintendent of schools, all in nationally prominent districts. He has developed nongraded high schools and elementary schools, as well as schools of choice. His experience covers working in and with public schools in inner city, urban, suburban, and rural settings, plus two nationally famous laboratory schools, one being John Dewey’s Laboratory School at the University of Chicago. He has also served on two boards of education, chairing the education committee of one.

Dr. Shapiro is Professor of Education in the College of Education at the University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida. He teaches doctoral and master’s courses in Educational Leadership, Curriculum, and Supervision, including such courses as Leadership, Change and Change Strategies, Organizational Theory, Principles of Administration, Advanced School Finance (a Policy approach), and various Curriculum courses, such as Curriculum Theory and Analysis, School Curriculum Improvement, etc.

His university experience includes being appointed from the superintendency as full Professor of Education at George Peabody College/Vanderbilt University, Director of the Advanced Graduate Center of the University of Tennessee of Knoxville at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. He has been chair of the Educational Leadership Department at the University of South Florida five times. He has also been a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Management at the University of Primorska in Slovenia. He has been one of two faculty members who developed and taught for several years an Undergraduate Leadership Minor for the University of South Florida where he has taught Leadership Theory/Practice and Organizational Processes. His teaching is based on a constructivist philosophy and approach, which he models for his students.

Dr. Shapiro’s writing and consulting are empirically based on his wide experience and background. For example, he is a pioneer in the small schools and small learning communities (SLC) movement, having published and developed decentralized schools as a director of secondary education, assistant superintendent, and superintendent. In that capacity he developed one of the earliest middle schools east of the Mississippi, and, consulting in Florida, developed middle schools from ineffective junior highs for two entire districts. Recently, he was the consultant for a large inner city high school, which decentralized into small learning communities, increasing student scores significantly as a direct result. Similarly, he was consultant for a large elementary school, which decentralized into numerous small learning communities, adopted a constructivist philosophy and teaching practices, in the process developing a number of professional learning communities (PLCs), and which became the model school for a large central Florida district. He also consults widely in such areas as school organization and management, developing comprehensive system-wide planning models, establishing oneself as a leader, analyzing, planning, and implementing change strategies that work. He also consults in personality and learning styles, conflict resolution strategies, team and trust building, etc.

He was the lead author of an analysis and recommendations to improve the Republic of Macedonia’s radical school reform which decentralized their entire system into independent school districts (all 2500 schools). He also provided expertise in the analysis of the radical school reform of the entire school system of the Republic of Georgia, with recommendations for its improvement.

He writes and presents internationally, nationally, and regionally over numerous areas including leadership, policy, change and change strategies, curriculum, and supervision. His major publications include two of the first four books on constructivist leadership, and now, the next, the first new theory of leadership in 30 years, a comprehensive theory and practice of constructivist leadership, The Effective Constructivist Leader. He is co-author of the first theory of curriculum, Curriculum and Schooling: A Practitioner’s Guide. Similarly, he is a co-author of the first theory/practice of supervision, Sociology of Supervision. He authored Social Dimensions of Supervision in the Handbook of Research on School Supervision, and Social Dimensions of Leadership in the Encyclopedia of Research on Leadership and Administration. He is co-author of several other books (Educational Administration Today, and Planning Flexible Learning Places), the latter with Stanton Leggett, which includes architectural renditions of innovative designs, including his designs for a very small, high quality high school and three model middle schools, all of which received widespread positive commentary and interest.

Contact Dr. Arthur Shapiro

Bruce Dixon
Senior Technology Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Bruce Dixon is a Senior Technology Consultant with Fielding Nair International. As a teacher, Principal, educational software developer and college lecturer, Bruce’s focus over the past three decades, has been on driving reform initiatives that significantly improve the opportunities for learning through the use of technology.

Following his teaching career, he was an educational software developer, and in the late 80’s co-founded what became the largest educational technology services company in the Southern Hemisphere, which oversaw the rapid expansion of technology use in Australian schools as well as the development of 1 to 1 (student to computer ratio) programs across Australia and New Zealand. He then took the concept to North America, Canada and the UK, before establishing a learning, technology and strategic consulting practice, Prestondixon. He has continued his pro-bono work through the establishment of the Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation.

He consults to schools, School Districts, Education Departments, Ministries of Education and corporations in the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, UK and New Zealand, has been invited to speak at events across Asia, Europe and North America, and continues to work on a diverse range of exciting projects making learning a more compelling experience for kids.

Contact Bruce Dixon

Michelle Swanson
Senior Professional Development Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Michelle began her career in education following a decade of work as a professional theatre director and organizer of the Bay Area Playwrights Festival and West Coast Playwrights Workshop and Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area.

During her 22 years in the classroom, Michelle co-founded the Ensemble Theatre Company of Marin, a sequential arts education model where students ran a repertory theatre at three high school sites. She served as Project Designer/Director of the Drake Integrated Studies Curricula at Sir Francis Drake High School, named a “New American High School” by the US Department of Education. She was also a founder of Drake’s highly acclaimed Communications Academy. During her time at Drake, she was also named the Marin County Teacher of the Year and the Marin Arts Council Outstanding Contributor to Arts Education.

On the national level, Michelle served as lead curriculum consultant on Jobs For The Future’s Benchmark Communities Initiative and designed professional development practices for the Collaborative Learning Communities, and was a Teaching Fellow for the AutoDesk Foundation for nearly a decade.

Michelle currently provides sustained professional services to districts throughout the US, focusing on school design, instructional design and delivery, project-based learning, standards-based assessment, and whole-school reform processes.

Michelle holds a BA from Washington State University in Speech Communications and an M.A. in Theatre Arts/Directing from San Francisco State University. Michelle and her husband Larry live in Eugene, Oregon.

Contact Michelle Swanson

Theron Cosgrave
Senior Professional Development Consultant, Fielding Nair International
Theron worked at Sir Francis Drake High School in California’s Marin County for 10 years - the first nine as a social studies teacher, and his last year as Assistant Principal. His teaching background includes helping to found Drake’s Communications Academy, a project-based program for 11th and 12th grade students that integrates Social Studies, English, Advanced Drama, and Advanced Video Productions. He also taught A.P. U.S. History, Psychology, Government, and Economics, served as Staff Development Coordinator, led two successful accreditation reviews, and presented at numerous conferences on project-based learning. Theron was named Drake’s “Teacher of the Year” in 2000.

As Assistant Principal, Theron managed Drake’s testing, technology, facilities, and athletics programs in addition to sharing teacher evaluation and student discipline duties.

In his consulting work Theron designs curriculum and teacher training materials and works with educators on a wide range of instructional issues, including project-based learning, school and small learning community design, assessment, leadership development, asset mapping, strategic planning documents, and whole-school reform coaching. He has also facilitated the development of strategic plans for school districts and youth development organizations.

Theron holds a B.A. in Political Science and M.A. in Education from Stanford University, and a M.A. in Education Administration from San Francisco State University. Theron and his wife Jill live in Davis, California with their two young boys.

Contact Theron Cosgrave

Eeva Reeder
Senior Project Based Learning (PBL) and Math Instructional Coach, Fielding Nair International

Eeva provides professional development to secondary-level educators in the form of workshops or long-term “embedded coaching” at their school. Her areas of specialization include:

• designing problem-, inquiry-, and performance-driven courses, units, and assessment tasks;
• improving student work via feedback from subject-matter experts and instructional rubrics;
• best-practice math instruction with a focus on teaching big ideas and balancing the teaching of skills, concepts, and applications.

Prior to coaching teachers, Eeva was a high school math teacher. An example of her project-based classroom work as well as two articles she wrote about PBL (Measuring What Counts and Designing Worthwhile High School Projects) are on the Edutopia website.

During her 15 years as a teacher, she collaborated with a local community college to pilot a College-in-the-High-School calculus course, worked as district K-12 Math Content Lead, provided teacher training in PBL for a consortium of districts joined by SchoolWork Initiative, represented academic teachers on a State Taskforce on Workplace Learning, and served on her school’s steering team for Small Learning Community reform.

Eeva holds a Master’s degree in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education from Arizona State University and an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from the University of Washington. She and her husband Kevin live in Seattle, Washington.

Contact Eeva Reeder

John Sole
Senior Professional Development Specialist, Fielding Nair International
John Sole, is a Service Learning Master Teacher, educational consultant, and videographer. He was an educator in the School District of Philadelphia for 20 years. In 1998, John left the classroom to become the Service Learning Specialist for the District. In that capacity, he assisted in the development and implementation of District-wide Project Based Service Learning and worked diligently to integrate technology into all projects as a 21st century teaching and learning tool. In his position as SL Specialist, he helped individual teachers, students and schools conceive, plan and implement hands-on-projects in the classroom. As the Service Learning Specialist, John created District-wide, student-directed projects such as “Designing the School of the Future”, the “Student Paper Recycling Initiative”, “Seeds to Trees”, and the “Children’s Water Monitoring Network”. All projects are designed for students to develop leadership and citizenship skills and to achieve mastery of grade appropriate curriculum and state mandated standards across the disciplines. Community Partnerships are integral to all projects in which John has been involved.

He has trained thousands of teachers from throughout the United States as well as from Canada, Japan, Serbia, the Ukraine and Russia about Service Learning and its implementation and has been directly responsible for involving tens of thousands of students in hands-on projects on the front lines in their classrooms.

Since 1999, John has created dozens tightly edited videos of real students conducting real projects, in and out of real classrooms.

In 2001, John co-founded Green Woods Charter School. Until June, 2004, he served as the Projects Specialist there. Green Wood’s pedagogical focus is environmental and project-based.

Beginning in 2004, John Sole has devoted himself full time to his educational consulting organizations. Sole Productions, is his video technology studio for visually documenting compelling student projects. Guerilla Educators (www.guerillaeducators.typepad.com) works to address the critical global need of providing the tools necessary for educators to practice world-class, hands-on Project Based Learning in their classrooms, schools, and Districts.

As a consultant, John also works closely with school architects, designers, and planners to powerfully connect the design process of school construction directly to students and curriculum via Project Based Learning.

Currently, John is in the process of developing another school, the Elementary School for Sustainable Design.

• “Sparking School Design Via Project Based Learning”. Q&A with John Sole, Project-based Service Learning Master Teacher and Founder of Guerilla Educators November, 2006
• Getting REAL, Part One — Q&A with John Sole, Project-based Service Learning Master Teacher
• Getting REAL, Part Two: The Philadelphia Story — Q&A with John Sole, Project-based Service Learning Master Teacher

Contact John Sole

Jody Sampson
Vice President, Fielding Nair International
Jody has worked to promote the missions of non-profit and public organizations for almost 20 years, doing advocacy, fundraising, public relations and marketing. Jody earned an MBA in Strategic Management and Marketing at Columbia University with an interest in applying private-sector methodologies to public-sector ventures. After graduate school, Jody joined the New York City School Construction Authority where she worked for 10 years as a member of an internal management consulting team. She worked on a broad range of projects, from an in-depth competitiveness study to overhaul the design department to establishing a quality management program for the agency.

Jody is an advisor to a project at Columbia Journalism School, the establishment of an institute to encourage journalists to work with high-risk urban high-school students. She has been advising on fundraising, marketing and strategic planning, as well as helping to write the business plan.

Jody is also a founding member of Urban Educational Facilities for the 21st Century, a non-profit that advocates for good school design for urban children. She is an editor and contributing writer for its Schoolhouse Journal. At Fielding Nair, Jody has many responsibilities including operations, administration, writing, interviewing, in-depth plan analysis and marketing.

Contact Jody Sampson

Clare Vogel
Educational Planner
Clare Vogel is committed to a community-wide participatory design process and has a strong understanding of pattern language in the context of architectural design. She offers four years of classroom experience as a K-12 and college teacher, as well as working knowledge of accessible design. As an associate at FNI, she is participating in the planning and design of the North Central Shared Facility in Regina, Saskatchewan. The shared facility is a unique partnership of community organizations, including a high school for 500 students, health clinic, library, community police station, healthy food store and infant care — all of which serve to support learning across the community.

Clare received her Master of Science in Design Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A strong interest in special populations and environment and behavior studies led her to a thesis study involving the identification of best practice performance standards for classroom architecture that supports children with autism. Her approach to the research entailed three focus groups, including parents of children with autism, teachers, speech therapists and occupational therapists who work with children with autism, and adults who have been diagnosed with autism. The research confirmed her belief that good design for exceptional populations is good design for all.

Previous experience includes teaching English for two years in Mongolia as a Peace Corps volunteer. Between stints of teaching in both rural and urban schools, she helped to develop and build a learning resource center for students and language teachers. During graduate school, she worked as Gallery Coordinator for a state-of-the-art performing arts center, and interned with the center’s Accessibility Coordinator, documenting accessible features for use in a national training conference on building accessible museums and theaters. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design (now Architectural Studies) from the University of Missouri.

Contact Clare Vogel

Bipin Bhadran
Strategic Management Consultant
Bipin is a Strategic Management Consultant with Fielding Nair International. In this capacity he directs many of the Company’s administrative, management and business development initiatives. He has over four years experience in managing business enterprises in diverse industries ranging from construction to tourism. FNI benefits from Bipin’s expertise in commercial operations, business development & international marketing.

Bipin provided end to end human resource solutions acting as a representative in India for the Ministry of Education, Rep. of Maldives. He was responsible for recruitment, selection and providing curriculum awareness to secondary school teachers. He was also associated with the Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia, serving as India Events Manager for all education promotion and marketing activities conducted by several private and public Malaysian universities. He organised road shows and exhibition events in various cities across India. He also undertook a market research project in India to analyse student behaviour in considering overseas higher education. This project provided a platform for assessing the effectiveness of a marketing scheme adopted by Malaysian universities for the Indian marketplace.

Bipin has provided services to a number of organisations in South East Asia, The Middle-East and UK.

Bipin holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science & Engineering from the University of Kerala, India and an MBA from Leeds University Business School, UK.

Contact Bipin Bhadran

Deepti Nair
Associate Planner
Deepti is a recent graduate of Hampshire College, a highly selective liberal arts school in Amherst, MA which is known for its innovative, personalized approach to education, She majored in art and technology, did a semester-abroad program in Germany and India and worked for her school’s IT department. She has also held internship positions with True Entertainment, the Style Network and Fuse Music Television and done freelance work as a videographer. Deepti has been involved with innovative school design from a young age. As a middle school and high school student she often helped to provide a student’s perspective into the way spaces are used in school and how they impact learning from a real world and experiential perspective. This led her to realize the limitations of traditional school design which she then spoke out eloquently against. In this contect she presented the student viewpoint at educational and educational facilities conferences in the United States and abroad. Deepti was a co-keynote presenter in Tasmania, Australia in 2004, where she spoke to senior educators including the education minister at an international conference on school design. At FNI, Deepti is involved as a key FNI client representative on the Educational Facilities Effectiveness Instrument (EFEI), supporting the company website, providing graphic design services, assisting with community workshops and report writing.

Contact Deepti Nair