Serves on the Arizona-Mexico Commission.

He teaches accelerated Spanish courses at Rio Salado College’s Institute for Culture and Language Learning.

Establishes the first Hands Across the Border – Manos Através de la Frontera exchange for the Maricopa Community Colleges and the Instituto Tecnológico de Hermosillo, Sonora, México.

As Department Chair, Vernon develops the first online Spanish courses in Arizona (later followed by courses in other languages).

Recognized with the Dolores Brown Award from the Arizona American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

Publishes Pensamientos: An Intermediate Spanish Reader with Dr. Ángela Félix.

Leads the State-Wide Languages Articulation Task Force for all Arizona Universities and Colleges.

Elected Faculty Senate President for Rio Salado College with the Maricopa Faculty Executive Council.

Vernon becomes the Dean of Institutional Effectiveness and is then promoted to Dean of Instruction at Rio Salado College.

Recognized with Telly Award for Distance Learning Instruction.

He drives the use of Big Data and Predictive Modeling for student success, resulting in RioPACE, which is implemented in all Rio Salado College Courses.

Vernon completes his PhD in Organization and Administration of Higher Education from the University of Arizona.

He is recognized with the WCET WOW Award for a home-grown plagiarism detection system.

Dr. Linda Thor selects him as her Vice President of Academic Affairs.

Vernon expands over 50 Workforce Development Partnerships with key business, industry, and government agencies and expands Dual Credit programs.

Selected as Board of Directors member for EDUCAUSE.

Serves as Chair of ELI (EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative) Advisory Board.

Starts Portmont College at Mount St. Mary’s (Los Angeles), a Gates Foundation funded initiative, as the Provost & Chief Academic Officer.

Vernon builds Guided Pathways, embedded credentials, and holistic student support for associate’s degree students for a tuition of <$10,000.

Builds articulation and seamless  transfer pathways to high-quality institutions

Vernon joins the University of the Pacific as Vice Provost for Distributed Learning.

Relaunches the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Center for Professional and Continuing Education.

Leads faculty selection and migration to a new LMS.

Appointed Associate Professor in the Bernerd School of Education.

He establishes programs in physician assistant studies, data science, audiology, educational leadership, and other areas on the Sacramento, Stockton, and San Francisco Campuses.

He joins APUS as Provost and Senior Vice President.

Oversees all schools, Academic and Student Affairs.

Sponsors the selection and migration to the new LMS, on time and under budget.

Vernon leads innovations in Open Educational Resources, doctoral and graduate program development, competency-based education, and faculty-driven quality assurance for online course design and delivery.

While on Sabbatical, he serves as Vice-President for Development & Chair of the Library of Education at the Policy Studies Organization.

He serves as a Faculty Fellow at the League for Innovation in the Community College.

Vernon establishes Engaged by Design, with Dr. Michael Cottam as its Founder.

He hosts the Engaged by Design Podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.