Why Vesper?
Vesper is the ancient name for the evening star. For centuries, the evening star has augured the gathering calm of evening, a time to reflect on what we have done and the work that lies ahead. Such moments of reflection and contemplation are few and far between in the lives of busy college administrators and students.
As a former vice president and dean, I am familiar with the essential tension of higher ed administration: policies and practices need to be improved but there’s no time to improve them because you’re too busy managing the policies and programs. Too often, the interruptions become the job and institutional progress stalls: without the opportunity to pause and reflect, you spend your time reacting rather than responding, fixing mistakes rather than forging solutions.
As a former academic adviser and dean of students, I am familiar with a similar tension that arises for students. There are a thousand demands on your time and attention. The criteria for success are often not very clear, and it seems like there's never enough time to get everything done. At the same time, it feels like assignments can always be put off just a little bit longer and by the time you realize you need to get caught up, you're too far behind.
Vesper makes room for you to reflect, contemplate, and act intentionally. We help students reflect on their academic strengths and challenges and implement customized plans for success. We help administrators make the time and space needed to advance institutional priorities, from institutional accreditation to policy review and revision to internationalization.
Whatever your goal, we do the work that needs to get done so you can do the work you need to do.
David Shein, PhD
CEO & Founder, Vesper Educational Consulting, LLC
David brings to his work a PhD in Philosophy, a Fulbright Scholarship, and more than 30 years of experience working with students, faculty, and institutional leadership to build student-centered programs and policies that fit their campuses and cultures. He has developed academic and co-curricular programs for institutions ranging from large universities to small liberal arts colleges, micro-colleges, prison programs, and dual degree partnerships. He has worked with institutions across Europe, MENA, Central Asia, East and Southeast Asia, and the United States. His work focuses on helping institutions develop sustainable, student-centered policies and programs that fit their educational missions, institutional cultures, and regional contexts.
David is a first-generation college student with a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from the State University of New York and a PhD in Philosophy from the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York. He founded the Instructional Support Services Program at Lehman College, where he also directed and taught in the general education program, and he was a founding director of the Learning Commons and of the Center for Student Life & Advising at Bard College, where he served as William Lensing Senior Lecturer in the Humanities and as Vice President for Student Success and Network Integration.
David’s career in student academic affairs began in graduate school: he supplemented his work as an adjunct with a part-time administrative role in the general education office at Lehman College. His responsibilities included helping students understand the role of general ed curricula in their studies- his first foray into academic advising. When his position expanded to include oversight of the college's main tutoring center, he gained the opportunity to train peer tutors, develop tutoring curricula, and provide academic support to students. Lehman is also where David cut his teeth on program development and implementation. The campus had five independently managed and budgeted tutoring centers, which was confusing for students and faculty and institutionally inefficient. David coordinated them: he worked with his colleagues to establish a directors council, synchronize schedules, implement resource-sharing protocols, and consolidate administrative oversight. Eventually, he turned what had been several disparate programs into an integrated Instructional Support Services unit and led the design and launch of an integrated instructional support center- one place where all students seeking assistance could go, one place where all faculty and deans could recommend students who needed support.
David brought this "one-stop shopping" model to Bard College, where he created an integrated writing/tutoring center and disability support program and, after serving (twice!) as interim dean of students, an integrated center for student life and advising. This led to a series of administrative appointments that focused on the integration of academic and student life, on the one hand, and on the development and implementation of policies and programs to support student success, on the other. He developed and oversaw a supplemental advising system, integrated student affairs and academic affairs programming, policies, and staff trainings, and worked across campus silos to develop co-curricular programs to enhance student life from first-year through senior year. He also worked directly with at-risk students, crafted and administered student-facing policies governing satisfactory academic progress, and led efforts to improve retention.
This cross-cutting work drew the attention of leaders in Bard's early college and global networks and David began working with them to develop academic advising and support initiatives and integrated curricular initiatives to fit their missions, cultures, and contexts. Serving as a consultant to campuses across the US and in Russia, Germany, Central Asia, and the West Bank, he trained faculty in student-centered teaching, developmental advising, and syllabus and curriculum design. This work in international education positioned him to help launch the Open Society University Network (now called GHEA21), for which he directed academic courses and curriculum and helped lead faculty and curriculum development for a global consortium of over 40 colleges and universities on five continents. Much as he did at Lehman and at Bard, David soon moved beyond program management to program design: he organized an array of loosely connected courses into a set of academic certificate programs and created and launched an online degree program for refugee and displaced students.
These varied experiences led to work in assessment and accreditation. Working across student and academic affairs positioned David to help lead the self-studies that were required for institutional re-accreditation, and working with institutional partner and off-campus programs positioned him to manage substantive change and program approvals domestically and internationally. For these reasons, he was appointed as Bard's liaison with the NYS Education Department and as one of its representatives to MSCHE and to NECHE.
Thirty-one years after those first forays at Lehman, David is still advising students, providing academic support, and developing programs that integrate student and academic life. Along the way, he developed expertise in accreditation, pedagogy and curriculum development, and international education, all of which he brings to Vesper’s consulting work.