New Executive Board Members

Sungti Hsu - Member-at-Large, Partnerships and Collaborations

Based on his professional experiences and personal conviction, Sungti Hsu co-founded the Association for Advancing Quality in Educator Preparation (AAQEP) in 2017. AAQEP is a quality assurance and improvement agency that accredits educator preparation providers. AAQEP currently provides its services to over 200 educator preparation providers in the US.

Prior to founding AAQEP, Sungti served as the Director for State Affiliates and Partnership Support at the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE); his portfolio included building state government relations (policymakers and state education authorities), providing programmatic and advocacy support for state affiliates, and transforming the association's data collection and utilization efforts. He expanded AACTE state affiliates’ reaches, involved state education authorities’ participation in the Association’s activities, and initiated AACTE’s first international collaboration effort.

Since the beginning of his career, Sungti has worked in various positions in state education agencies, as special assistant to the Executive Director at the Hawaii Teacher Standards Board, as a consultant at the Michigan Department of Education, as project coordinator in the Higher Education Office at the New York State Education Department, and lead higher education consultant and licensure consultant at Kansas State Department Education. He developed educator data systems, led state educator standard revision, and coordinated redevelopment and implementation of educator licensure assessments in addition to guiding and shaping the formation and operation of state educator preparation policies.

A native of Taiwan, he holds degrees from Brigham Young University (BS and MS) and completed doctoral coursework from the University of Kansas.

Sungti can be reached at S.Hsu@aaqep.org.

Tim Finklea, Member-at-Large, Partnerships and Collaborations

In his role as Vice President for Membership Engagement and Board Services, Tim will proactively engage educator preparation providers to develop resources and strategies to maintain and increase members and to meet current and future business needs. He joined CAEP in January 2019 and was previously the Director of Member Engagement and Support at the American Association of Colleges for Teachers Education. He has experience in higher education, nonprofits, and the private sector. He sits on his neighborhood school PTA and LSAT.

Tim can be reached at Tim.Finklea@caepnet.org