Dr. Don Olcott, Jr. is an Independent Higher Education Consultant. He previously served as Vice President for Higher Education with VCampus Corporation. VCampus is a national and international leader in providing education and training to universities, corporations, and government agencies through web-based administrative, course management, and delivery and hosting services. Prior to his tenure at VCampus, he served as the Associate Dean for Extended University at the University of Arizona. He has held administrative and faculty appointments with the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE), Oregon State University, the University of Missouri-Columbia, Western Washington University, Burlington Testing, Inc., and the United States Air Force.

Dr. Olcott has over 20 years of public and private sector experience in the design, delivery, and evaluation of higher education degree and training programs delivered via technology. Don was the 2000 University Continuing Education Association’s (UCEA) Gayle B. Childs award recipient for exemplary long-term leadership, scholarship, and applied contributions to the field of continuing and distance learning. He received the 1998 Charles Wedemeyer Outstanding Distance Learning Practitioner in North America award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and The American Center for the Study of Distance Education. He has received numerous national and professional awards for leadership, publishing, and distinguished service to the field of continuing and distance education.

Dr. Olcott serves on the Board of Directors for the National University Telecommunications Network (NUTN), the Steering Committee of the WICHE’s Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications, and Oklahoma State University’s Institute for Telecommunications. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Canadian Journal of Distance Education, Distance Education Report, India’s Open U. e-Learning Journal, and Athabasca University’s International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. He is a nationally and internationally known speaker and has consulted to colleges, universities, and corporations across the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. He is a graduate of Harvard University’s Institute for the Management of Lifelong Education. Dr. Olcott was the founder of WICHE’s Institute for the Management of Distance Education (MDE).

Don received his bachelors and masters' degrees from Western Washington University and his doctorate in higher education leadership from Oregon State University. Don’s personal interests include sports, music, and history. He lives with his wife Janie in Tucson, Arizona. His daughters, Kelli and Carrie, reside in Colorado and California.