Jaimie Henthorn, Ph.D.
Director for Academic Innovation Programs | CU System
jaimie.henthorn@cu.edu
The Director of Academic Innovation Programs is a position within the Office of Academic Affairs and the University of Colorado System. The director provides leadership and support for innovative and future-thinking academic initiatives and emerging tools such as adaptive learning platforms, competency-based credentialing including badging, artificial intelligence, and augmented/virtual reality. They also sustain and further develop successful existing innovations, such as the highly regarded annual COLTT conference, Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives, MOOCs and associated operations with campus partners, the student success and digital badging initiatives, and provides oversight of regulatory support as requested by all four campuses for online state authorization processes and compliance activities. Henthorn has instructed courses at the College of Architecture and Planning at CU Denver and has prior experience in many facets of the University's international affairs. She received a BA from Northwestern University, an MFA from Edinburgh College of Art, and a Ph.D. in Artistic Practice as Research at the University College London.
Office for Digital Education and Engagement | Office of Academic Affairs
Office of the President | University of Colorado
Campus Box 35 UCA
1800 Grant Street
Denver, CO 80203
Erika G. Swain, MLIS
Associate Director for State Authorization | CU System
swaine@cu.edu
Assistant Director of Academic Compliance and Authorization | CU Boulder
Erika.Swain@colorado.edu
Erika holds a Bachelor of Arts in history from Ithaca College and a Master's in Library and Information Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Prior to joining CU Boulder, she worked for many years in regional accreditation, overseeing institutional and peer evaluator training and federal compliance programs in her various roles at both the Higher Learning Commission and the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Erika has also served as the Registrar at North Country Community College in Saranac Lake, NY.
Jill C. Lester, JD
MOOCs Initiative Program Manager | CU System
jill.lester@cu.edu
Jill Lester works as a University of Colorado System MOOC's Initiative Program Manager to develop and launch Coursera courses and specializations for the CU System Office of Digital Education & Engagement (ODEE). Her first initiative was in 2015 with Computer Science faculty launching 10 specializations in Cybersecurity from the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. Since then she has facilitated the launch of several healthcare specializations included Palliative Care: It’s Not Just Hospice Anymore, Newborn Baby Care and School Health. She also acts as an editor and onboards new faculty to Coursera instruction.
She has had the pleasure of attending multiple Coursera Bootcamps in San Jose California and works closely with Deborah Keyek-Franssen and Jaimie Henthorn in ODEE. She was the former director of the Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology Conference (COLTT) at the University of Colorado Boulder from 2007-2014.
Jill Lester attended New York University and Colorado State University graduating summa cum laude from CSU with a BA in Political Science and minor credits in Agricultural Science. She completed her Juris Doctorate at the University of Denver and has worked in both the public and private sector since then. Lester ran her own successful custom home building company for many years in Boulder and began her path in education teaching building trades and K-12 Social Studies and Computer Science classes. She has worked for the University of Colorado since 2007 in several capacities beginning as an Academic Technologist on the Boulder campus.
Janice Thorpe, Ph.D.
Senior Instructor/Director, Online Learning | UCCS
jthorpe@uccs.edu
Janice Thorpe will serve as the first Faculty Program Chair of the Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology (COLTT) Conference. This new role within the System Office for Academic Affairs will support COLTT’s mission to further teaching with technology through sharing effective practices and building a network of support across the system and throughout the state. Thorpe has taught at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs in the Department of Communication, where she also is the director of the Online Program, course director for Research Methods, and the department’s assessment director. Janice recieved a BA from the University of Tennessee in Education, a BS from the University of Colorado Denver in Communication, and a PhD from the University of Colorado Denver in Education- Research, Evaluation, and Measurement.
Ric Mills
Project Operations Coordinator
ric.mills@cu.edu
Monica Dinh
Digital Design and Administrative Assistant
monica.dinh@cu.edu