Advancing the public mission of higher education requires powerful partnerships. We’re all more impactful when we break down silos and embrace shared goals to make progress together. For our opening general session, hear from Yolanda Watson Spiva, president of Complete College America and a decades-long advocate and leader in the student success and civic engagement movement. Under her leadership, Complete College America recently published “Complete College, America: Harnessing the Power of Higher Education to Renew American Democracy”. Hear from Yolanda about the necessity of coming together across our sector so that we can deeply integrate and advance student success and civic engagement commitments. Illuminate that advancing the public mission of higher education requires us to come together and advance our shared missions and work in aligned and mutual ways.

After her remarks, Yolanda will be joined by Mary K. Grant, president of Massachusetts College of Art & Design and chair of Campus Compact’s board of directors for a discussion of the challenges we face and the myriad opportunities ahead of us.

During this session, we will also present the Richard Guarasci Award for Presidential Leadership to Jennifer Cowley, president of the University of Texas at Arlington and the Eduardo J. Padrón Award for Presidential Leadership to Lane Glenn, president of Northern Essex Community College. We will kick off the conference session with a powerful performance from the Atlanta Women’s Choir.