Faculty
Meet Your Chair
Lorna Somers
Lorna Somers is recognised internationally as a teacher/facilitator in the field of Higher Education and Institutional Advancement speaking at educational and arts organisations throughout the world. On August 15, 2022 she became Executive Director of the Mohawk College Foundation.
An accomplished and successful fundraiser, Somers spent the past 35 years at McMaster University where she has been engaged in securing some of the largest charitable gifts in Canadian history. She led two university-wide, comprehensive campaigns, both with a focus on volunteer and academic participation. She has also structured and led targeted campaigns for McMaster's Museum of Art and Faculty of Health Sciences, the University's Student Centre, and secured support for numerous endowments establishing scholarships, bursaries, chairs, and professorships.
Somers is co-author of the definitive Canadian fundraising text, Planned Giving for Canadians and the recipient of numerous international awards for excellence in teaching and leadership.
Faculty
Jay Davenport
Jay Davenport, CFRE, serves as vice president of Development and Alumni Relations for Virginia Commonwealth University and VCU Health.
As VCU’s chief development and alumni officer, Jay leads fundraising and engagement efforts for the VCU enterprise, including the Monroe Park Campus, the health sciences campus and VCU Health. Areas under his purview include Advancement Solutions, alumni relations, annual giving, corporate and foundation relations, development and alumni communications, donor engagement, planned giving, presidential advancement, principal giving, regional philanthropy and the universitywide development staff.
Jay joined VCU and VCU Health in 2017 in the middle of a $750 million campaign and helped steer the campaign to a successful conclusion, raising over $840 million. In the past six years, Jay has helped VCU and VCU Health raise over $1 billion and is currently designing the first comprehensive campaign for the VCU and VCU Health.
Jay has previously led fundraising teams at Wake Forest University, including as assistant vice president of college development, assistant vice president of major gifts and associate vice president and campaign director. He has also served as director of development and team leader at Rice University and held fundraising positions as a college development director at the University of Memphis College of Business and Wright State University College of Engineering. He began his higher education career as an assistant dean of admissions at Wittenberg University.
Jay has served on the board of directors for Make-A-Wish of Greater Virginia and the Benedictine Schools of Richmond. Jay holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Xavier University and a master's degree in higher education administration from Ball State University.
Kevin Hamilton
Kevin Hamilton was appointed dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts in 2018. He is also a professor of new media in the School of Art and Design and previously served as senior associate dean in the college.
A member of the Illinois faculty since 2002, he holds appointments in the Media and Cinema Studies program in the College of Media and has held campus fellowships at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Center for Advanced Study. Hamilton's scholarship and artwork have earned support from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Illinois Arts Council. Recent research on the role of photography in nuclear weapons research culminated in his book with Ned O'Gorman, Lookout America! The Secret Hollywood Studio at the Heart of the Cold War (Dartmouth College Press, 2018). Previous efforts include artwork on race and public memory, publication on interdisciplinary research methods, and examination of racial bias in algorithmic systems. Hamilton's training as a painter at the Rhode Island School of Design and in public art at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology continues to inform his investments and approach.
Peter Hayashida
Peter joined Marts&Lundy in 2022, bringing experience in advancement leadership, organizational culture, and talent management, as well as planning for and executing university campaigns.
As Vice Chancellor for Advancement at University of California, Riverside from 2009 through 2021, Peter led development, alumni engagement, and communications & marketing at a Carnegie Research 1 institution enrolling 26,000 students in Southern California. In this role, Peter led UCR's first comprehensive fundraising campaign, surpassing its $300 million goal; oversaw an institutional rebranding and visual identity initiative; launched an alumni census and facilitated a transition away from dues-based alumni membership; and served in a campus leadership role during The Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. UCR is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU).
Previously, Peter spent 19 years at UCLA and was on the advancement executive team that ran and closed UCLA's second comprehensive fundraising effort. Campaign UCLA generated $3.053 billion for faculty research, student success, programs, and facilities and transformed the University's culture of philanthropy. Peter is an active CASE volunteer, former trustee, and frequent speaker and conference chair. He served for a decade on the faculty of the CASE Summer Institute in Educational Fundraising and was recognized with the Crystal Apple for Teaching Excellence.
Peter has contributed chapters to published books on campaign management; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and advancement leadership. Peter spent 10 years on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the world's largest healthcare, social service, and arts & culture organization serving LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. He earned a BA in communication studies from UCLA and an MBA from California State University, Northridge. Peter resides in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Shaun B. Keister
Shaun B. Keister, Ph.D., is a veteran fundraiser with experience in higher education, arts and conservation philanthropy. He has served as UC Davis’ first vice chancellor for development and alumni relations since 2011.
Keister functions as the university’s chief fundraising officer, leading a team of over 300, and president of the UC Davis Foundation. In his role as vice chancellor, he also serves on the Chancellor’s Leadership Council. Keister led UC Davis in completing its first comprehensive campaign, “The Campaign for UC Davis,” raising more than $1.1 billion from 110,000 donors. Under his leadership, UC Davis rose to the top 2% of fundraising programs in the U.S., according to the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).
Keister guided the vision and record-breaking success of the university’s second comprehensive campaign, “Expect Greater: From UC Davis. For the World,” which raised more than $2.25 billion from 2016-2024. Donors surpassed the campaign’s $2 billion goal by more than 10%, with 133,961 people giving toward student support, human and veterinary medicine, sustainability, innovation, and the arts.
Previously, Keister served in leadership development roles at Penn State, Florida State, and Iowa State.
He is a nationally renowned fundraising expert who is often quoted in local and national media outlets including CNN Money, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, CASE Currents magazine, The Sacramento Bee, and Fox 40 News. Additionally, Keister has over 30 years as an independent fundraising consultant serving clients including the San Francisco opera, Steppenwolf Theatre, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and more than 60 public and private universities.
Keister is an active member of and volunteer for CASE, having both chaired and participated in many district, national, and international conferences. He is a recipient of the 2005 CASE Crystal Apple award in recognition of his outstanding performance at CASE international educational programs. Keister has served on the CASE Philanthropy Commission.
Keister has a bachelor's degree in political science from Penn State and master's and doctoral degrees in sociology from Iowa State.
Maureen MacDonald
Maureen J MacDonald received her Honours BSc in Chemistry from Acadia University, Canada, in 1991 and her MSc (1993) and PhD (1998) in Kinesiology from the University of Waterloo, Canada. After post-doctoral research fellowships at the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Ontario she started her academic career as a faculty member at Wilfrid Laurier University. Since 2000 she has been a faculty member in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, where she is a full professor and the Dean of Science.
Dr. MacDonald the director of the Vascular Dynamics Laboratory and is an active member of the Exercise Metabolism Research Group in the Department of Kinesiology at McMaster. Her research interests are in exercise physiology with specialization in the application of ultrasound techniques to the assessment of the peripheral blood vessels. Most recently, together with her research team, she has been examining impact of high intensity interval training on the blood vessels and heart in individuals with coronary artery disease and the use of heat therapy as an alternative to exercise training and focussing on inclusion of women in these areas of research. She has directly supervised over 200 undergraduate and graduate students since her appointment in 2000 and was awarded the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology Mentorship award in October 2018. Dr. MacDonald has been continually funded by The Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada since 2001, and currently is also funded by Canadian Institutes for Health Research.
Dr. MacDonald is a member of the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology, the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Physiological Society, and the European College of Sports Science and. Two research leaves at Stanford University (July 2006-June 2007) and Loughborough University (July 2013-June 2014) provided Dr. MacDonald with international academic exposure and fostered lasting international research collaborations. She retains a Visiting Professor position in the School of Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences at Loughborough University and is currently on research leave and appointed as a Global Chair at Manchester Metropolitan University in the Institute of Sport.
Susan L. Parish, PhD, MSW
Susan Parish is Dean of the College of Health Professions and Sentara Professor of Health Administration at Virginia Commonwealth University. She previously served as Dean of the Bouvé College of Health at Northeastern University. At Brandeis University, she was the inaugural Marks Professor of Disability Policy, and founding director of the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy. As an assistant professor of social work at UNC Chapel Hill, she also led the Developmental Disabilities Training Institute.
As dean, her priorities are in diversifying the health care workforce and improving the affordability of health professional education. Parish’s scholarship examines the health and well-being of children and adults with disabilities and their families. Her work has yielded more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles. Her research has been funded by the NIH, US Departments of Agriculture and Education, and a range of state and foundation sources. She has won numerous teaching and research awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Public Health Association Disability Section, the Research Award from the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and the Distinguished Research Award from the Arc of the United States. She is a Fellow of both the American Association on Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities and the Society of Social Work and Research.
Parish holds a BA in English literature and an MSW from Rutgers University and earned her PhD in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Waisman Center.
Dale Wright
Dale Wright serves as associate vice chancellor for advancement at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC). In this role, besides managing a small portfolio of donors and prospects, he provides vision, strategic leadership, mentoring, and coaching to a portfolio of chief advancement officers and deans and academic and university leaders.
Prior to this position, he served at UIUC as the associate dean & chief advancement officer for The Grainger College of Engineering with responsibility for the strategy and operations in fundraising and constituent engagement. As campaign director for the college’s $550M goal, as part of the "With Illinois" $2.65B campaign (original goal of $2.25B), he led the college in exceeding the goal by 21%. Additionally, the college secured 25% of the overall campaign total.
Over the last 20+ years, Wright has held a variety of alumni and fundraising engagement roles in higher education. He has guided several deans, academic leaders and university leadership through the campaign planning process and execution, over three $1B+ comprehensive campaigns. He is an experienced principal and major gift fundraiser, mentor, and leader, designing engagement programs to help teams and volunteers meet philanthropic goals.
Wright is an active CASE volunteer, having served on district and national committees, and presently as a faculty member/speaker at CASE conferences and other CASE educational programs. Wright also holds membership in organizations such as the African American Development Officers Network, the Association of Fundraising Professionals and is involved in other non-profit work, including serving on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors for the American Legion Boys State of Missouri (Missouri Boys State). He earned both his bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Missouri (Mizzou).