{"id":52107,"date":"2025-06-17T12:05:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T17:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/?p=52107"},"modified":"2025-06-17T10:27:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T15:27:57","slug":"two-acc-leaders-selected-for-prestigious-aspen-institutes-rising-presidents-fellowship-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/2025\/06\/17\/two-acc-leaders-selected-for-prestigious-aspen-institutes-rising-presidents-fellowship-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Two ACC Leaders Selected for Prestigious Aspen Institute\u2019s Rising Presidents Fellowship\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program selected two Austin Community College District (ACC) leaders for the 2025-26 Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship. Dr. Shasta Buchanan, ACC Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, and Dr. Elizabeth Knight, ACC Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Programs, were two of 40 leaders selected to take part in the program out of more than 120 applicants.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Aspen Institute\u2019s Colleague Excellence Program equips emerging leaders with the tools, insights, and support needed to drive real change for our students,\u201d said ACC Chancellor Dr. Russell Lowery-Hart. \u201cI\u2019m incredibly proud of Shasta and Beth for being selected. Their leadership reflects the heart of who we are at ACC, and I look forward to walking alongside them as they grow through this powerful fellowship experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drs. Buchanan and Knight will spend the next 10 months working closely with highly accomplished community college presidents and thought leaders to learn from field-leading research, examine demographic and labor market conditions in their communities, assess student outcomes at their colleges, and advance a clear vision for excellent outcomes for all their students while in college and after they graduate. Fellows will learn from\u2014and apply to their own contexts\u2014lessons from over a dozen years of Aspen research about how to lead an institution to higher and more equitable levels of student success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m truly honored to be selected for the Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship. This isn\u2019t just a professional milestone\u2014it\u2019s a deeply personal commitment to our students. It\u2019s about growing as a leader so I can better serve them, break down barriers, and drive meaningful change that transforms lives and strengthens our communities,\u201d said Buchanan. <\/p>\n

\u201cI am honored to be a member of the 10th cohort of the Aspen Rising President’s Fellowship, and look forward to learning alongside fellow leaders from institutions across the country. I trust this experience will allow me to advance meaningful, student-centered work in support of the ACC community,\u201d said Knight. <\/p>\n

Rising Presidents Fellows are chosen based on their commitment to student success, the extent to which they exhibit the characteristics of excellent presidents revealed in our research, and interest in pursuing a college presidency within five years of completing the fellowship.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur research on excellent colleges reveals that they have a few big things in common: They have presidents who focus on a few large-scale reforms that transcend enrollment and completion goals and centrally focus on whether graduates are set up to succeed in the next stage of their lives\u2014either the world of work or at a university where they aim to earn a bachelor\u2019s degree,\u201d said Josh Wyner, executive director of the College Excellence Program. \u201cThis cohort of fellows is clearly committed to advancing student success and has the talent to lead transformational reforms. We are really looking forward to our year with them in the fellowship and bringing their talents into our alumni network.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen Presidential Fellows represent the next generation of diverse college leaders: the incoming class is 60 percent women, and 50 percent are people of color. The institutions they represent are also diverse, located in 19 states and ranging from small rural to large urban colleges. <\/p>\n

ACC has a long history of leadership being selected for this prestigious program. ACC Executive Vice Chancellor for the Future Dr. Monique Reeves, ACC Vice Chancellor of Strategic Initiatives Dr. Garrett Groves, ACC Board of Trustee Vice Chair Dr. Manny Gonzalez, ACC Vice Chancellor of Institutional Research & Analytics Dr. Jenna Cullinane Hege, ACC Vice Chancellor of Instruction Dr. Gaye Lynn Scott, ACC Vice Chancellor of Institutional Effectiveness & Grant Development Dr. Mary Harris, and Associate Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management Dr. Dorado Kinney have all participated in the fellowship.<\/p>\n

As Aspen Presidential Fellows, they join a network of over 430 forward-thinking peers\u2014197 of whom are sitting college presidents\u2014who are applying concrete, grounded, and innovative strategies to meet student success challenges at their colleges. <\/p>\n

The Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship is made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Burton Family Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and the College Futures Foundation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For bios and photos of all 40 leaders, visit https:\/\/as.pn\/RPF-C10<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program selected two Austin Community College District (ACC) leaders for the 2025-26 Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship. Dr. Shasta Buchanan, ACC Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs, and Dr. Elizabeth Knight, ACC … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3930,"featured_media":46763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,17,18,19],"tags":[1913,3509,4198,4200,4199],"class_list":["post-52107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-community","category-current-students","category-news-and-announcements","category-official-acc-press-releases","category-students-and-alumni","tag-aspen","tag-aspen-fellow","tag-aspen-institutes-rising-presidents-fellowship","tag-elizabeth-knight","tag-shasta-buchanan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3930"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.austincc.edu\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}