Paul A. Gore

Paul A. Gore

Paul’s efforts to promote college and career readiness, high school and college student persistence, and academic success are informed by more than twenty-five years of research, program development, implementation, evaluation, consulting, and teaching. Paul currently serves as the vice president of academic affairs and provost at Bellarmine University in Kentucky. Paul earned his Ph.D. in counseling psychology, with an emphasis in student career development, academic success, and transition, from Loyola University–Chicago. He has held academic and administrative responsibilities at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, Southern Illinois University–Carbondale, ACT, Inc., the University of Utah, and Xavier University.

Paul’s work focuses on noncognitive and motivational determinants of academic and career success. In particular, he is interested in how secondary and postsecondary institutions use data describing the noncognitive strengths and weaknesses of their students to promote transition, engagement, student success, and retention. He regularly consults with secondary and postsecondary institutions in the United States and abroad on developing and evaluating student academic and career success programs.

Paul has authored more than fifty peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He is the past chair of the Society for Vocational Psychology and served as an advisory board member and journal editor for the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and was the recipient of a 2013–2014 American Council on Education Emerging Leadership fellowship.

Wade Leuwerke

Dr. Wade C. Leuwerke

Wade is a professor of counseling at Drake University. He earned his Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale. Wade has authored more than ninety journal articles and book chapters, as well as national and international conference presentations. One of his areas of research is the assessment and development of student and employee social and emotional skills. He has co-created several social and emotional assessment tools, including the Academic and Career Excellence System (ACES), that help secondary and postsecondary students to identify and build their skills. He works with faculty and advisers at the college level and school counselors at the high school level to integrate social and emotional data into their work with students.

Wade has experience examining school counselors’ roles and working with professional school counselors to positively impact students’ academic development, career and college exploration, and the acquisition of personal and social skills that will prepare them for college and life beyond. He has worked with dozens of secondary and postsecondary institutions on a range of factors related to student success and persistence, including evaluating institutional practices, using data to drive student interventions, creating individualized student success plans, training, strategic planning, allocating resources, and collaborating to promote student success.

A. J. Metz

Dr. A.J. Metz

A.J. is a tenured faculty member and serves as associate chair of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah. She directs the master’s program in school counseling and the Positive Psychology Certificate Program. She also coordinates the Strategies for College Success courses in which ACES and the Connections textbook are used.

A.J. earned an M.Ed. in vocational rehabilitation counseling and a Ph.D. in urban education (specialization in counseling psychology) from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She studies the cognitive and noncognitive factors related to academic success, career readiness, and retention in underrepresented and underserved student populations such as first-generation college students, women in STEM, college student athletes, and college student veterans.

A.J. has extensive teaching, counseling, and career advising experience in high schools, community colleges, and four-year public and private institutions of higher education. Her passion for teaching motivates her to experiment with innovative teaching methods and to develop new and engaging activities and instructional materials. She has received the University of Utah’s Early Career Teaching Award, the College of Education Teaching Award, and the Celebrate U – Showcase of Extraordinary Faculty Achievement award. She is the past president of the Utah Psychological Association and serves on multiple state-level task forces and advisory councils promoting school based mental health services, college access and equity, and career readiness.