Institute Leaders

Emeritus

Former Board Members Entitled To Participation

Nick Donohue, Former Commissioner of Education, New Hampshire, Former CEO of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation.

Frank Pickus, Assistant superintendent, Gloversville, New York, retired. Frank has been facilitating Institute conferences for nearly 20 years and was a teacher of special education before becoming an administrator.

Tom O’Bryan is a member of the Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES board of Education, also a member of the St. Regis Falls CSD Board, and a member of the Adirondack Teacher Center Policy Board.

Founding Members Entitled to Full Participation

Marjorie Flynn, former CSEA President. Marge has been involved in every major step of the Institute since 1995, sometimes officially, often behind the scenes.

Susan Herman, former middle school special education teacher/instructor of inclusion classes and supervisor of student teachers, St. Lawrence University and partner in everything undertaken by the Institute. 

Pat Flynn, former Research and Educational Services Department, NYSUT. Along, with Nick Donohue, Terry Mazany, and Don Mesibov, Pat was part of the team that designed the unique week-long summer conference format that modeled learner-centered strategies for thousands of educators.

Terry Mazany, former CEO of the Chicago Educational Trust, interim superintendent of the Chicago School System, assistant superintendent of the Oakland, California City Schools, restructuring consultant for the Baltimore School System, conference and workshop designer and currently interim superintendent in Atlanta, Georgia.

Institute Director and Former Board Member

Don Mesibov founded the Institute for Learning Centered Education in 1995. He conducts workshops on Authentic Assessment, Performance Based Learning, Shared Decision-Making, Unit Writing, and Authentic Task Constructivism. Don has co-authored three books on constructivism with Pat Flynn, Paul Vermette, and Mike Smith. He and council member Dan Drmacich are about to publish a book on learner-center/social-emotional strategies in partnership with the Institute. He has also written a personal memoir reflecting time he spent with his mother, an Alzheimer's sufferer.  Don taught courses at St. Lawrence University for 20 years, where he put Constructivist theory into practice.