Interview with Achieving the Dream President and CEO Karen Stout

Today we’re talking with Achieving The Dream president and CEO, Karen Stout.  She’s been president and CEO since 2015 and was previously the president of Montgomery Community College for 14 years.  Being tuned into many community college presidents, President Stout has an understanding of where they’re at currently.  She says the perspective changes day to day with the shifting news around the Delta variant.  She also thinks we’ve learned a lot in the last year and a half.  President Stout says campuses are focused on safety and support for faculty and students.  Beyond that, they’re focused on reconnection and trying to find the students that left last Spring and didn’t return in the Fall.

Achieving The Dream is a national, nonprofit leader in championing evidence-based institutional improvement.  For this work, they recently were awarded a grant from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott in the amount of $20 million.  Achieving The Dream was one of a few out of 700+ non-profits chosen for this award.  With an annual operating budget of $16-20 million, President Stout cried when she received the news.  The gift will give them some breathing room and help to build a reserve fund.  Beyond that, they plan to invest in some infrastructure support, especially around providing professional development and staffing.  They also want to be generous with the gift and are looking at ways to re-grant some of the money to the field to bring more community colleges into their network.

As they use COVID-19 relief dollars to support low-income students, community colleges are really looking at debt and affordability.  President Stout says looking at the basic needs of the students is really important, and they’re seeing more creative ways to support low-income students.  Because of Covid she also sees many colleges thinking differently about partnerships.  On the other hand, President Stout says many college presidents are worried about how the pandemic has deepened racial equity gains that they were making in their student success work.  They continue to try to build perspective around racial equity.