Monday, May 26, 2025
12:00 – 1:30 p.m. CST

Dr. Carrie B. Kisker
President, Kisker Education Consulting

We Are All Guardians: Teaching, Learning, and Leading as Mission Protection

As confidence in higher education reaches an all-time low, declining enrollments threaten public funding, and legislative priorities force changes to student support programs, community college stakeholders—faculty, staff, administrators, trustees, and others—must work in ways that protect and defend the foundational principles upon which our institutions stand. Drawing on ways that community colleges have evolved over time in response to shifting priorities and expectations, this keynote address provides a roadmap for protecting the institutional mission and social role of our institutions through everyday work to serve students and communities.

About Dr. Carrie B. Kisker
Dr. Carrie B. Kisker is president of Kisker Education Consulting in Los Angeles, California. Drawing from her own and others’ research, she regularly consults with college leaders on issues related to entrepreneurship and innovation, program and policy development, strategic planning and accountability, civic learning and democratic engagement. In addition to her consulting work, Dr. Kisker runs the Center for the Study of Community Colleges, a nonprofit organization that engages in and supports research related to community college leadership, practice, and policy. Dr. Kisker is author of The American Community College (Jossey-Bass, 7th ed., 2023), written with Arthur M. Cohen and Florence B. Brawer, The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System (Jossey-Bass, 3rd ed., 2024), with Arthur M. Cohen, and Creating Entrepreneurial Community Colleges, A Design Thinking Approach (Harvard Education Press, 2021). Dr. Kisker holds a B.A. in psychology and education from Dartmouth College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in higher education from the University of California, Los Angeles.