About the Executive Director

In 1977 he returned to the university for his master’s degree and immediately became involved in educational research and innovation – winning the school’s "Owen Rich Award for Unquenchable Thirst for Knowledge." He studied how people learn, evaluate and share information (The Diffusion of Shocking Good News [Journalism Quarterly, 1979] and Conceptual Influences in the Mass Communications System [master's thesis,1980].

But most of his research focused on educational innovation, specifically:

• EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING: News Executives Urge Major Overhaul of Journalism Training Programs [Editor & Publisher, March 1982], Newspaper Editors Point to J-Grad Deficiencies, [Journalism Educator, 1980], Broadcast Executives Internships for Students [unpublished, 1984], New Executives Reaffirm: They're Ready to Help [Journalism Educator, Fall 1980], American News Executives Demand Educational Reform [Media Reporter (England), Fall 1983].
• LEARNING THROUGH WRITING: Improving Journalistic Writing by Research, Writing in Other Classes [Journalism Educator, 1982], Teaching Mass Communication History Through Research, Reporting & Debate [unpublished, 1984], Frowns Greet New J-Grads in Magazine Job Market [Journalism Educator, 1979] and Newspaper Editors Point to J-Grad Deficiencies, [Journalism Educator, 1980].
• MULTI-SENSORY LEARNING: Crash Course in Journalism: A Multimedia Journalism Textbook [Newstext Publishing, 1984], Servicing Homeschool Families Offers Opportunity, Challenges [http://virtual-community.us/home.htm, 2003].

He successfully applied his strategies in college instruction. Of his work as an assistant professor at the SUNY College at Buffalo, Department Chairman Ronald L. Rabin wrote: "He works tirelessly and endlessly to prepare, to teach and to revise his classes. He seeks out new teaching methods, new forms of class organization and new internship opportunities. And he has created new internships by forging relationships between the College and commercial newspapers. … As I write this, I am straining to communicate the sheer power, the force, created by a faculty member with this intelligence, competence and dedication. He can change a department by his example, with his enthusiasm and with his ideas."

Professor William A. Donnelly confirmed: "Ken is creative and innovative in his teaching, constantly seeking new ways to improve the learning experiences of his students."

In 1987 Ken took over the Journalism Department of a small junior college – Columbia Basin Community College, where he applied his multimedia textbook and other techniques so successfully that his freshman and sophomore students consistently outperformed juniors, seniors and grad students in a regional competition judged by the Society of Professional Journalists. Competing against such schools at Gonzaga University, Whitworth College, Eastern Washington University, Boise State University, and University of Montana, Ken’s students won the General News Writing competition three of five years and came in second the other two years. They also won a variety of Investigative Reporting, Feature Writing and Sports Reporting awards, and the school’s HawkEye newspaper was named No.1 among all colleges and universities in the "Inland Northwest" and all community colleges throughout the Pacific Northwest. Judges called it "by far the most professional" student newspaper they reviewed.

In 1994 the struggles of his own young daughter caused Ken to change his focus to early childhood and elementary education, as he began to expand his independent consulting work. In hundreds of cases, he observed remarkable success with multimedia and computerized curricula that provide:

• Multi-sensory, interactive approaches to simultaneously appeal to visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles.
• Individualized, adaptive lessons to meet the unique needs of each student.
• Student choice in what, when and how fast they learn, accentuating what students feel is to them most relevant and important at that "learning moment" and providing "just in time" training.

In 2001 Ken began working with the National Children’s Reading Foundation, producing some 50 articles on innovative educational programs, published in a state-funded education newsletter. He then became Managing Director of the Reading Foundation. The importance of children learning to read early and well had been powerfully championed by the Reading Foundation before it was picked up as the banner of the Bush Administration (The 90% Reading Goal, The New Foundation Press, 2527 W. Kennewick Ave., PMB 313, Kennewick, WA 99336, 1998). But while the Reading Foundation focuses on parental involvement, Ken wanted to expand the foundation’s scope to include curriculum evaluation and research. It was as the Reading Foundation managing director that Ken initiated the Read To Succeed Pilot Project. But by early 2003, the Reading Foundation decided to maintain its initial focus and helped Ken to spin off a new non-profit organization, allowing him to move the Read To Succeed Pilot Project and several other projects over to the new organization. While Ken continues to work with the Reading Foundation on a cooperative basis, he also is expanding the efforts of IEI to identify the best curricula to enhance reading and other basic skills for students of all ages.