POLICY & LEADERSHIP
I have advocated extensively for educational opportunity programs and the students they serve, working with legislators and policymakers at the state level in both Minnesota and Nevada, as well as at the federal level, to craft strong, high-impact educational opportunity policy to advance the education experience of traditionally under-served students. I strongly believe that with the right support, all students can succeed in college, and that a commitment to social justice and diversity must be the cornerstone of a responsive, contemporary post-secondary institution.
My first experience as an educator involved supervising a group teachers in an education opportunity program called Upward Bound. In the three years I was involved in the program, I worked closely with funders, community stakeholders, and students to continuously improve the program’s quality, keeping my team focused on inclusion and social justice for the students we served. I strongly value collaboration as a leadership strategy, and I consider my role as a manager to be one of facilitation; the strongest thing a leader can do is to provide guidance which allows team members to work. Most recently, I led a team of international education consultants working to develop a new curriculum for a middle school in Saudi Arabia. Among many other opportunities, the project provided me with valuable experience working in a cultural context that was completely different from my own, giving me key insights into the ways managers can leverage diverse perspectives to create educational environments focused on equitable outcomes for students. Before that, I supervised 16 undergraduate tutors in Occidental College’s Peer Learning program. A key part of my work in that context was to develop a training program that fit with Occidental’s ongoing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, with a special focus on finding strategies to improve educational and social outcomes for the students our program served. I have also led teams of education researchers at the University of Southern California, investigating the ways that institutions of higher education use big data to improve student learning in the evolving post-secondary education market.
I also have extensive experience working in administration in the context of an exceptionally diverse school district that encompasses urban, suburban, and rural contexts. While employed by the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, NV, I served in a variety of leadership roles at both the site-based level and with the district central office. During the three years I worked at Liberty High School, I oversaw budget appropriations and purchasing, supervised and evaluated teachers and other instructional staff, and worked to ensure the alignment of instruction and student outcomes in the school’s articulation cluster. My duties there included overseeing the school’s college readiness programs, coordinating with the Talent Search and Upward Bound programs at UNLV, and creating and implementing site-based programs and services aimed at supporting students from historically marginalized communities.