Two leaders at Northwest State Community College have graduated as fellows of the newest class of the Ohio Leadership Academy for Student Success.
Graduating as fellows from Northwest State Community College are Dr. Tiffany Ludwig and Ashlynn Cox.
The academy, sponsored by the Ohio Association of Community Colleges, annually gathers mid-level faculty and staff for a year of training, exchanging ideas, and immersion in how to promote student success.
The OACC created the academy in 2019 to reverse management turnover by strengthening internal advancement pipelines within the state’s 23 community colleges. Michigan, New York, and Texas are among states replicating Ohio’s initiative.
The academy is an outreach of work done by the OACC’s Success Center for Community Colleges. Created in 2012, the center focuses on helping Ohio’s two-year colleges marshal resources to better direct students’ education by aligning their academic choices with the careers they hope to undertake.
The president of each of Ohio’s community colleges nominated two employees as fellows. Over the next year, the fellows met in person six times and worked on group projects between sessions. The forums, with a special focus on Ohio educational models, included aspects of a presidential leadership curriculum provided by the Washington, D.C.-based Aspen Institute, one of the program’s backers.
The academy was funded by several national organizations, ensuring that colleges had minimal expenses to participate.
“We greatly appreciate the opportunity from OACC to provide Tiffany and Ashlynn with high-level training, so they can continue to grow and thrive in their professional positions at Northwest State,” said Dr. Todd Hernandez, NSCC President. “As an Aspen Institute graduate myself, I can attest first-hand to the effectiveness of the curriculum for professional development,” Hernandez continued.
The leadership academy brings together educators with different higher ed roles to allow a deeper understanding of how parts of each school mesh to create student success models, said Laura Rittner, executive director of the OACC’s Success Center for Ohio Community Colleges.
“The new fellows have learned how to implement transformational changes in their colleges that allow the best chances for students to both succeed and excel in their academic pursuits,” Rittner said.
“States committed to improving student success must support college leaders at all levels of higher education institutions,” said Rittner. “The OACC leadership academy is an example of a program that nurtures and advances these leaders in the name of helping students reach their potential.”
Supporting and mentoring talented higher education administrators is crucial at a time when their institutions bear an ever-increasing responsibility for graduating workforce- ready employees in fields such as healthcare and nursing, teaching, business, and information technology. This demand is also growing as Ohio sees a flood of jobs in the electric vehicle battery, semiconductor, solar panel, and cloud storage sectors.
The OACC represents the presidents and trustees of the state’s 23 public two-year institutions that work to advance community colleges through policy advocacy and professional development.
