College of Professional Studies

Darius Navran, PhD
Dr. Navran is the Dean of the College of Professional Studies and has been teaching at Chancellor University since 1992. He holds a BA in Public Administration, an MA in Political Science and Public Policy and a PhD in Comparative World History with a cognate area in International Relations. He also holds certificates in Russian language and Russian studies from University of California, Berkeley and Norwich University. Prior to joining Chancellor University, he taught at Miami University as a teaching fellow and at Cuyahoga Community College in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. Between 1989 and 1992, he served as the College Dean at ETI Technical College. Dr. Navran advises Chancellor University's Model UN club, which he founded in 1998. Under his leadership, the club has attended numerous national and international conferences including Harvard University WorldMUN in Bello Horizante, Brazil and Edinburgh, Scotland. The club has received numerous recognitions for mastery and articulation of issues by conference sponsors. In recent past, he has received grants from UN Foundation to sponsor the annual People Speak Program, a national and foreign policy forum, which advances understanding of America's role on the global scene. He is currently the contact person for the Madison Foundation, which grants scholarships to promising young scholars. Dr. Navran has a number of published papers and book reviews in scholarly journals and has presented papers at national and international conferences. He annually chairs the Comparative Public Administration and Globalization Track for International Academy of Business and Economics (IABE). He holds memberships at IABE and the ASPA (the American Society for Public Administration).

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Scott Brantley, JD
Scott Brantley has been the Director of the Chancellor University Criminal Justice Program since January 2004. Prior to that Mr. Brantley served as a Special Agent and Chief Division Counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Cleveland for over twenty-eight years. He holds a BA and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Memphis and is admitted to practice law in Ohio and Tennessee. During his FBI career, one of his responsibilities was to lecture and teach at numerous police academies, in-services, and seminars throughout northeast Ohio. Mr. Brantley continues to lecture at several police academies in Metropolitan Cleveland and often consults on the Fourth Amendment and search and seizure matters. His professional memberships include the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Cuyahoga County Chiefs of Police, Ohio Council of Criminal Justice Educators, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, and Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 25.

Gretchen Fleming, JD, MS
Ms. Fleming recently came from Bowling Green State University where she has been a faculty member for the past 9 years, and EHOVE Career Center in Milan, Ohio where she started a Tech Prep Legal Careers Program. Ms. Fleming’s educational background includes a Bachelors of Science from St. Mary’s University in Political Science, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Toledo, and a Master in Criminal Justice-Forensic Psychology from Tiffin University. Her Master’s thesis was “The insanity Defense in Infanticide and Filicide Cases: What’s in a Label?” which she presented at the Ohio Council of Criminal Justice Educators Conference in April, 2004. Her work experience has been both in the law and in education. She has worked for the Lucas County Sheriff’s Office conducting legal research with inmates and background investigations on new hires as well as creating policy manuals for the deputies. She has also worked at the Erie County Prosecutor’s Office seeing life from both the State and the victim’s perspective.

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Dr. Ljiljana Krizanac-Bengez
Dr. Krizanac-Bengez serves as the lead faculty and chair of the Health Services Management program. Dr. Krizanac-Bengez received both her MD (1985) and PhD (1992) degrees from the Zagreb School of Medicine, University of Zagreb in Croatia. She received several prestigious distinctions including the International Union Against Caner (UICC) Fellowship, the Croatian State Fund for International Scientific & Technical Collaboration (ZAMTES) and the British Council Fellowship at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in the UK. After receiving her doctoral degrees, from 1993 to 1996, she pursued advanced postdoctoral training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA. While there, Dr. Krizanac-Bengez conducted cutting-edge research on the role of CD44 in an allogeneic model of bone marrow transplantation. During that time she was a recipient of the Oncology Research Faculty Development Program Award, granted by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). She published her findings in several internationally respected journals.

From 1997 to 1999, Dr. Krizanac-Bengez was appointed as an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at the Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia. Due to the war in the Balkan region and the ultimate dissolvement of the former Yugoslavia, and its deleterious impact on funding for scientific research, Dr. Krizanac-Bengez left Croatia to continue her scientific career in the United States. In 1999 she was appointed as a research fellow at the Cerebrovascular Research Center, Department of Neurological Surgery at Cleveland Clinic. In 2002 she was promoted to Project Staff (Research Assistant Professor) upon receiving an American Heart Grant. She has been conducting experiments using a novel in vitro model of blood-brain barrier. She has several recent high-impact, first-author papers based on this model. Dr. Krizanac-Bengez has also published over 25 peer-reviewed manuscripts, several book chapters/reviews, and presented over 40 abstracts at scientific meetings. She has continually been recognized for outstanding research talents and ability to apply her findings to create pragmatic solutions to some of the most complex and elusive medical and bio-pharmaceutical issues. Dr. Krizanac-Bengez also has held several teaching appointments and is a member of numerous professional societies.

Dr. Krizanac-Bengez is a recipient of multiple awards and honors from major domestic and international institutions. She has authored / co-authored 5 grants (1 AHA and 4 NIH), and received funding for breakthrough research. She has received multiple awards and honors from major research institutions including the Oncology Research Faculty Development Program (NCI), and the American Heart Scientist Development grants. She was named an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability & Outstanding Researcher" by the US Immigration & Naturalization Service for her Green Card Approval and is currently a US citizen.

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