Hal Plotkin
Senior Scholar
Hal Plotkin is a writer, journalist, activist and former government official at both the local and federal level. During the Obama administration, Mr. Plotkin served as the Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary of Education, which oversees all federal higher education programs and policies. Mr. Plotkin is one of the early leaders of the international Open Educational Resources movement. In 2003, he authored the first board policy at a community college in the United States that promoted the use of Open Educational Resources while serving as a member and then president of the Silicon Valley-based Foothill-De Anza Community College District Governing Board. Mr. Plotkin has authored more than 650 articles for a wide variety of outlets, including Harvard Business School Publishing, Inc. magazine, SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, and International Business magazine, among others. He was a founding editor of the public radio program Marketplace, the former Silicon Valley Correspondent for CNBC.com, and Senior Open Policy Fellow at Creative Commons USA from 2014-2017. Mr. Plotkin earned his A.A. degree in History from Foothill Community College and his B.A. degree in Behavioral Sciences from San Jose state University. He is the first graduate of Foothill College ever elected to serve on its governing board.