Dr. G. Alexander Bryant

President, North American Division

Glenward Alexander (“Alex”) Bryant, DMin, serves as the president of the North American Division and vice president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. Prior to his current position, he served as executive secretary of the North American Division and president of the Central States Conference as well as Temperance director, Youth/Pathfinders/National Service Organization director, and superintendent of Education.

Dr. Bryant earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in theology and business administration from Oakwood College in 1981. In 1982, he began his ministry in Springfield, Missouri and in Coffeyville and Independence, Kansas. He was ordained to the gospel ministry in 1986 and earned his Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University in 1988. In December 2011, he received his Doctor of Ministry degree from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Dr. Bryant also served as a student missionary to Japan for a year. In college, his gift of administration flourished, and he started to serve as director of Adventist Youth at Oakwood College and as president of the Black Students Association of the Seminary (BSAS) at Andrews University.

The General Conference Executive Committee also recognized that God had given Dr. Bryant the special gift of leadership and elected him to serve as executive secretary of the North American Division in October 2008, in Manila, Philippines. He was re-elected in Atlanta, Georgia at the 2010 General Conference Session as executive secretary of the North American Division.

Dr. Bryant is married to the former Desiree Wimbish, current associate director of the NAD Ministerial Association. She formerly served as assistant director of the NAD Education Department, superintendent of Education of the Central States Conference, and principal of the V. Lindsay Seventh-day Adventist School in Kansas City, Kansas. Dr. and Mrs. Bryant are the proud parents of Travis, Traven, and Terrence.

Dr. Joy Fehr

President, La Sierra University

Joy A. Fehr began serving as La Sierra University’s fourth president on July 1, 2019. In response to the news of her appointment Dr. Fehr commented: “as La Sierra University moves into the future I look forward to discovering with the campus community how we can continue to ensure our students are best served, best educated and best prepared to be positive change agents—the conduits of God’s grace in their worlds.”

In her previous role as provost of La Sierra, Dr. Fehr created the Senior Leadership Team of academic leaders and university executives. The group has created a roadmap for growing the university’s enrollment and increasing net tuition revenue over the next three to five years. In support of the team’s work, she also led in the creation of the Strategic Enrollment Planning Council through which programs will be added and current programs evaluated based on a data-informed process.
Before she arrived at La Sierra University, Dr. Fehr served as dean of the arts division and award winning English professor at Burman University, previously known at Canadian University College. Before her academic career, she served as co-owner of Fehr West Industries Ltd., a mechanical mobile repair business, where she was responsible for key business decisions.
Her contributions to Adventist higher education include continued service on the North American Division of Seventh-day Adventist Church Higher Education Collaboration Taskforce, continued membership with the Association of Adventist Academic Administrators, and upcoming service in January with an Adventist Accrediting Association Visiting Team.
Dr. Fehr holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Calgary, including a Ph.D. in English Literature. She lives in Riverside with her husband, Cornelius.

Dr. Cheryl Kisunzu

Provost, Washington Adventist University

Kisunzu holds a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership from Andrews University Berrien Springs, MI; M.S. in Nursing as a Family Nurse Practitioner from Rush University, Chicago, IL and B.S. in Nursing, also from Andrews University. She has held senior-level positions of progressive academic and administrative leadership which include Vice President for Human Resources and Organizational Development as well as the Dean for the Life Science Human Services Division and Director of the Nursing Program at Harper College Palatine, IL.; Dean for Mountain View Arts and Sciences Department/Director of Nursing; and  Grant Administrator at Eastfield College Mesquite, Texas for its historic 1.4 million dollar Texas Workforce Commission Grant. Kisunzu also has over 14 years of teaching experience achieved through faculty appointments at Vanderbilt University/Nashville, TN; Loma Linda University/ Loma Linda, CA;St. Louis Community College/Meramec St. Louis, MO and Harper College/Palatine, IL. In addition, she is a reviewer for the Middle States Substantive Change Review Committee, a member of the Adventist Health Care Board, and certified as a performance excellence Malcolm Baldrige Evaluator.

Aimee Leukert, MA

Assistant Director, Center for Research on Adventist Education

Aimee Saesim Leukert has been an educator in the Adventist school system for almost 15 years. She has taught at the elementary, academy and university levels and has also served as a principal in the Southern California Conference. Aimee’s current work at the Center for Research on Adventist Education has allowed her to share her passion for teaching through different channels, including assisting the NAD Education Taskforce and launching Ambassadors for Adventist Christian Education (AACE), a nationwide organization designed to recruit, organize and support volunteers for K-12 schools across the NAD. Aimee is also continuing her own educational journey as she pursues a Ph.D. in Education at Claremont Graduate University.

Aimee and her husband Kristian, a teacher at Loma Linda Academy, live in Grand Terrace, CA with their two small girls.

Dr. Janine Lim

Director of Online Higher Education, Andrews University

Janine Lim, PhD, currently serves as associate dean for online higher education in the School of Distance Education at Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, MI. She and her team support over 200 online courses, provide training for faculty teaching online, and work with the campus infrastructure support of online learning. Her department also provides educational technology and Moodle support for faculty and students. In addition, Janine is responsible for the faculty and courses of the Consortium of Adventist Colleges and Universities. Janine has served on the board of the United States Distance Learning Association since April 2015. Prior to her work at Andrews University, Janine coordinated distance education for 22 K12 school districts in southwest Michigan for 14 years. In that position, as one of the co-founders of TWICE, Michigan’s K12 Videoconferencing Organization, Janine has spearheaded popular international K12 video conference projects such as Read Around the Planet and MysteryQuest. While still serving on the board of TWICE, she was instrumental in designing and implementing the CAPspace website for collaborative video conference projects. Janine has taught 15 unique graduate educational technology classes online numerous times over the past 15 years, with some classes attracting participants from all over the world. Her current research interests include teacher behavior in successful online courses, intersubjectivity in quality online discussions, and student activity patterns in self-paced courses.

Dr. Andrea Luxton

AACU Executive Director/Recently Retired President of Andrews University

On July 1, 2016, Andrea Luxton began serving as the sixth president of Andrews University (and 24th president overall since Andrews University first began as Battle Creek College), following her election to the position on Feb. 29, 2016, by the executive session of the Andrews University Board of Trustees. Luxton continues the Legacy of Leadership that is a hallmark of the University and is the inscription on the J.N. Andrews sculpture in front of PMC on the Berrien Springs campus.

Dr. Bradford C. Newton

President, Pacific Union Conference

In August of 2021, Pastor Newton took on the role of president of the Pacific Union Conference, which requires leadership of all church activities in a vast and diverse five-state region. Newton’s long history in church leadership in the Pacific Union makes him particularly suited to this role.

For more than 25 years, he has served in various capacities in the union: pastor in the Southern California Conference, president for the Nevada-Utah Conference, associate director of public affairs and religious liberty for the Pacific Union, and most recently as executive secretary and ministerial director for the Pacific Union—a role he held for 13 years.

While he is a native Californian, having grown up in Arcadia, Newton attended college and graduate school at Andrews University in Michigan, earning bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in theology and ministry. He spent the first decade of his service as a pastor and conference leader in Illinois.

Newton sees the role of the Seventh-day Adventist Church as being potentially transformational during what he calls a “monumental time in Earth’s history.” “The way the Lord has led us in the past, and the promise of the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, gives us confidence for the important work that lies before us.”

He is married to Jennifer (née Christian), a certified faith-based meeting planner and consultant; they have two adult children and two granddaughters.

Robert Ordóñez, MS

Associate Professor, Southern Adventist University

Prof. Ordóñez recently returned to Southern, where he received a BS in Computer Science and a BA in German with Secondary Education Certification in 1995. (Yes, that's an unusual combination--and he'll advise you to find your own unique mix of areas you're passionate about as you select majors and minors.) In the intervening time, he earned an MS in Software Engineering at Andrews University, and taught in the Computer Science Departments at Andrews, Columbia Union College (now Washington Adventist University), and, most recently, Pacific Union College.

Prof. O enjoys a broad range of areas within the field of computing, but has focused on computing education, web development and the study of programming languages, especially functional programming languages. He's a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), participating in the Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) in the pursuit of what he enjoys most--helping students master the intricacies of computer systems and discover the fundamental concepts of computing and their applications in every area of life.

Spending time with his wife, Cathleen, and their son Matthew, a first grader at Spalding, fills Prof. O's life with a wonderful variety of activities, from flying RC planes and helicopters (Matthew wants to build one) to enjoying the Tennessee Aquarium and other local attractions. Being back in the South has also brought the Ordezes closer to extended family in Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

Having grown up in Central America, Prof. O learned to love traveling early on--he's visited every country between the US and Panama, and lived in 5 of them by the age of 10. In fact, he used to think everyone was issued a passport at birth, and was surprised to learn some of his college classmates have never even had one!

He'll encourage you to spend a year (or at the very least a summer) serving or studying abroad during your time at Southern, and would enjoy sharing stories and photos from his year Austria, which included a visit to 8 other European countries. Other trips have taken him to the Middle East and Far East, and he's had the opportunity to visit and teach at universities in Jamaica and Singapore. He hasn't toured the US as extensively, but he has managed to visit 8 of the 13 Adventist institutions of higher education in North America.

With traveling comes a love of languages and cultures. Ask Prof. O about the linguistic interest he shares with Dr. Caviness in the Physics Department, or his experience student-teaching a language he'd never studied in school.

Prof. O also enjoys singing, playing piano, and enjoying the sound of anyone joyfully praising God through music. During his time in California he learned to enjoy swimming, jogging, biking, and hiking, and has been delighted by the variety of outdoor activities (and indoor alternatives during inclement weather) that the Collegedale and Chattanooga area offers.

Dr. John Peckham

Professor of Theology and Christian Philosophy Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

John Peckham was called to serve as a professor of theology at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary in 2013. From the moment of his arrival, he distinguished himself as a cutting-edge teacher, researcher, and scholar. As such, he has made a significant impact upon the student population and his fellow professors. His passion for scholarship is evident to all. Since his arrival at the Seminary, John has made an impressive contribution to Adventist theology as well as to wider Christian academia. A crowning achievement was the publication of “The Love of God: A Canonical Model”, a book published by InterVarsity Press, which received the 2015 Readers' Choice Award.

Prior to this, his dissertation, “The Concept of Divine Love in the Context of the God-World Relationship,” was published by Peter Lang, in New York. In 2016 John published a bestseller “Canonical Theology: The Biblical Canon, Sola Scriptura, and Theological Method,” printed by Eerdmans. His most recent publication is “Theodicy of Love: Cosmic Conflict and the Problem of Evil,” which was published by Baker Academic in 2018. This year he is scheduled to release a textbook on the Doctrine of God. During his time at the Seminary, John has also written a number of peer-reviewed articles, published in a variety of Adventist and Evangelical venues.

For his accomplishments as a teacher and scholar, he received the Daniel A. Augsburger Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016.

Despite his many successes, John remains a very humble Christian gentleman who is dedicated to serving God and others through his gifts and talents.

Nicolette Piaubert, F.N.P., R.N.

Assistant Professor of Nursing & Student Success Coordinator, Pacific Union College

Nursing assistant professor and student success coordinator Nicolette Piaubert, F.N.P., R.N. has worked at PUC for over a year. Last year she was one of the nursing professors who went on the Kenya mission trip, where she assisted in delivering babies at the clinic there. One of the babies was even named Nicolette, in honor of her.