Speaker Bios - The Council of Independent Colleges

Contact: Marie Malzberg, Senior Editorial Producer, CNN Newsroom, One Time Warner Center, Fifth
Floor, New York, NY 10019; (212) 275-8261; C: (917) 751-5728; marie.malzberg@turner.com; Twitter:
@MarieCNN
Jon Marcus is a contributing editor at the Hechinger Report and U.S. higher education correspondent for
the Times (U.K.) Higher Education magazine. He also has written about higher education for the
Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, U.S. News & World Report, and other magazines and
newspapers, including CrossTalk, the journal of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher
Education. The former editor of Boston magazine, Marcus holds a master’s degree in journalism from
Columbia University and a bachelor’s degree from Bates College. He attended Oxford University and
teaches journalism at Boston College and Boston University.
Contact: Jon Marcus, Contributing Editor, The Hechinger Report, 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 650, New
York, NY 10115; (617) 738-5961; C: 617-650-7041; jmarcus@netzero.com
Mary Beth Marklein has covered higher education for USA TODAY since 1997. In 2007, through a
fellowship awarded by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, she wrote about community
colleges from a local, national, and international perspective. She spent the 2004–2005 academic year
teaching journalism at the University of Bucharest and Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj, Romania, as a
Fulbright Scholar. During a sabbatical in the summer of 2001 she studied the impact of technology on
higher education at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She also has taught journalism courses
at American University in Washington, DC. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, a master’s from American University in Washington, DC, and is currently pursuing
graduate studies in the higher education program at George Mason University in Northern Virginia.
Contact: Mary Beth Marklein, Higher Education Reporter, USA Today Education, 7950 Jones Branch
Drive, McLean, VA 22108; (703) 854-3684 or 3400; mmarklein@usatoday.com
Fritz McDonald is assistant vice president for communications and marketing at Mount Mercy
University. He has more than 25 years of experience as a professional writer, editor, and creative
strategist. McDonald earned his bachelor’s degree at University of California, Los Angeles, and an MFA
from the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop. Prior to joining Mount Mercy, he was a creative leader
at Stamats, Inc., where he developed marketing communications, digital strategy, and branding programs
for colleges and universities across the United States. McDonald has presented at conferences such as
HighEd Web, EduWeb, EduComm, and the AMA Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. He
has written on the uses of social media in higher education most recently for University Business.
Contact: Fritz McDonald, Assistant Vice President for Communications and Marketing, Mount Mercy
University, 1330 Elmhurst Drive, NE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52402-4797; (319) 363-1323 x1205 or 368-
6475 #1; C: (319) 693-9399; fmcdonald@mtmercy.edu
Tim McDonough, vice president of communications and marketing at the American Council on
Education (ACE), manages a comprehensive outreach program to enhance public understanding of a wide
range of higher education issues and the specific activities of ACE—including marketing, membership,
public affairs, publishing, and web services. He has worked in the higher education community for more
than 25 years and has extensive experience both with campus concerns and the higher education policy
debates in Washington. Before joining ACE in 1998, McDonough served for four years as vice president
for public affairs at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU). Prior to
joining NAICU in 1992, he held a number of positions at the University of Maryland, College Park,
including director of development communications and associate editor of public affairs in the Office of
Institutional Advancement and alumni director for the College of Business and Management. Previously,
he was public relations director of Washington Journalism Review (now American Journalism Review),
the monthly media magazine published by the University of Maryland’s College of Journalism.
McDonough has served on the board of directors of the Education Writers Association and the Bacchus &
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