2016 COLLEGE AND CAREER READINESS WORKING GROUP
SESSION 1 DEFINING SUCCESS
June 13 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
M106 – 107
Expected Outcomes:
Introduce assets and capabilities of Working Group participants.
Highlight the common interests of participants represented in the Working Group and subtopics.
Identify a common understanding of each subtopic.
Identify barriers/issues the table would like to address.
Framing Questions:
How do you define success for the young people you serve/are interested in supporting?
Where does your subtopic fit on the path to a young person’s success?
What barriers do young people face as it relates to your subtopic?
What barriers would your group like to address over the course of the Working Group sessions?
Proposed Agenda
Welcome & overall Working Group framing
Opening remarks
Don Yu, Better Director – Make Room Campaign, Civic Nation
Subtopic overview and transition
Table discussions
Report outs and next steps for Session 2
SESSION 2 REMOVING BARRIERS
June 13 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM
M106 – 107
Expected Outcomes:
Continue to identify unaddressed challenges/barriers for young people within your subtopic area.
Generate ideas for solving unaddressed challenges and lingering obstacles to success.
Connect efforts and determine new areas of potential action.
Framing Questions:
What is the barrier/challenge that your group wants to tackle during the Working Group session?
Who are the necessary stakeholders required for successful implementation? How can this
initiative incorporate on-ramps for others to contribute to its success?
Proposed Agenda
Room energizer and welcome back remarks
Recap and Session 2 introduction
Commitment to Action highlights
Table exercise and discussions
Report outs and next steps for Session 3
SESSION 3 DESIGNING SOLUTIONS
June 14 12:30 PM – 3:30 PM
M106 – 107
Expected Outcomes:
Refine the key elements of the proposed solutions identified in previous sessions.
Develop an action plan for the next two months, identifying and outlining concrete next steps,
and delegating responsibilities to continue momentum beyond CGI America.
Discuss as a full group the major themes that connect the subtopic discussions and identify
additional opportunities for collaboration and partnership around emerging Commitments to
Action.
Framing Questions:
What immediate next steps are required to take these ideas from concept to reality? What
resource and capacity commitments are participants willing to make (or consider making) to
advance the proposed Commitments to Action?
Who will manage and shepherd this initiative in the near-term? In the long-term?
What major tools, approaches, themes, and best practices emerged from table-level discussions
that would be useful to other emerging Commitment ideas?
Proposed Agenda
Facilitated networking /Commitment to Action highlights
Table discussions
Solutions Pitch
Large group discussion
Connecting the dots and emerging themes across subtopics
Next steps and closing remarks
SELECT 2016 COMMITMENTS Click here for a complete list of past commitments
Scaling Career Fluency®: Making Good on the Promise of College
Commitment by: The Opportunity Network
Partners: CauseLabs; Edwin Gould Foundation; Fund II Foundation; Leon Lowenstein Foundation;
Reach Higher, The White House; SweetRush
In 2016, The Opportunity Network (OppNet) committed to finding field-wide solutions to fill a national
gap in college success and career readiness by expanding the reach of its Career Fluency® program from
serving 2,000 low-income, first-generation, college bound students in New York City to 100,000 students
nationwide. Over three years OppNet will expand its six-year Fellows program, replicating in new
geographic locations, scale its Career Fluency® Consultancy to 90 schools and community-based
organizations nation-wide to amplify existing college access investments, and develop and launch a
digital Career Fluency® Portal for educators and students to access OppNet’s best-in-class Career
Fluency® curriculum. The three coordinated strategies accelerate college and career impact by connecting
entities across sectors and through direct service, field-wide capacity building, and virtual programming,
allowing OppNet to scale its data-driven impact across the nation.
Less Debt & More Degrees
Commitment by: uAspire
Partners: ECMC; Edwin Gould Foundation; Lumina Foundation; MetLife; The Boston
Foundation/Success Boston
In 2016, uAspire committed to design and launch a policy and systems change engine that will harness its
college affordability expertise to influence K-12, Higher Education leaders, and state and federal agencies
through partnerships, trainings, and convenings. uAspire will create the Affordability Fellow Program and
train 200 fellows who will impact 25,000 youth in their partner organizations and build a uAspire Policy
Division that will Establish a Policy Team and Strategic Plan to drive systemic change that will decrease
student debt and increase degree completion for American youth.
#BeReal: Critical Mentoring for College Success
Commitment by: The Youth Mentoring Action Network; Summer Search
Partners: Amped Strategies; Campaign for Black Male Achievement; Mentor; National Cares
In 2016, the Youth Mentoring Action Network and Summer Search committed to developing and
supporting the concept of critical mentoring. Critical mentoring means integrating and interrogating
context so that mentoring adolescents is culturally relevant and creates a space for honesty, critical
consciousness and ultimately, transformation. YMAN, Summer Search and their partners will host a two-
day convening of key mentoring and youth development organizations to establishing working guidelines
for the practical implementation of critical mentoring in today’s college/career readiness programming.
YMAN will identify and develop resources such as staff/volunteer training and curriculum materials to
scale its reach, develop a webinar which will be taken by over 200 mentoring professionals, and lead a
presentation at the annual MENTOR National Summit reaching an additional 100 professionals.
College Persistence: Thriving Beyond College Acceptance
Commitment by: Student Sponsor Partners (SSP)
Partners: Bottom Line; The Ivy Key; UniFi Scholars
In 2016, SSP committed to adding a college persistence initiative to its College and Career Program,
supporting 693 high school seniors and improving their likelihood of college graduation. SSP will hire a
College Persistence Counselor to advise SSP seniors, partner with The Ivy Key to provide a six-week
customized college admissions course to SSP seniors, partner with UniFi Scholars to implement a
financial literacy curriculum, and also partner with the Bottom Line to provide college persistence support
to at-risk SSP high school graduates at 16 target colleges in New York. The program will focus on
academics, employability, financial aid, and life issues.
Developing Student-Ready Colleges
Commitment by: College Forward
Partners: Concordia University – Texas; Greater Texas Foundation; Houston Endowment; Lone Star
College – North Harris; Michael & Susan Dell Foundation; Sul Ross State University; The Kresge
Foundation; The Meadows Foundation
In 2016 College Forward committed to scaling Success Partnerships, a highly effective college success
program for underserved students. Partnering colleges will be provided with near-peer mentors who
deliver culturally relevant and individualized academic, financial, and socio-emotional guidance to
designated students. By the end of this commitment, College Forward will partner with nine colleges
from regionally diverse communities – including rural, suburban, and urban institutions of higher
education – and will directly impact 7,420 students. College Forward will also develop the tools,
trainings, and technology that will enable partner colleges to adopt and independently operate Success
Partnerships, while preserving student outcomes. Success Partnerships’ impact on student outcomes is
immediate, while the institution’s ability to support underserved students is permanently improved.
Through this commitment, College Forward will accelerate the transition to a national higher education
system that is fully equipped to serve every student, regardless of economic or family background.
Storytelling: How College, Community, and Career Intersect
Commitment by: Story2
Partners: Civic Nation; Opportunity Network; Students for Education Reform
In 2016, Story2 and its partners committed to supporting 10,000 16- to 24-year-olds in using storytelling
for the writing and speaking required to cross the bridge from high school to postsecondary education,
work, and service. Using in-person training and online practice – including use of the Story2 online
platform – Story2 will teach students how to plan, organize, and complete college essays, as well as to
build a portfolio of course, career, and community experiences by telling their stories out loud on video
and in writing.
College Ábaco: Better Tools for College Access
Commitment by: College Abacus, and ECMC Initiative
Partners: ACT; College Summit; ECMC Foundation; Latino U; National College Access Network
In 2016, College Abacus, an ECMC Foundation initiative, committed to making its free college search
tool fully accessible in Spanish, making it easier for the tens of millions of Spanish-speaking U.S.
households to not only identify the best schools for their budgets but navigate the college search process
as a family unit. College Abacus will develop the Spanish-language tool College Ábaco and its Pell
Grant-specific partner tool Pell Ábaco to help bilingual Hispanic families seamlessly comparison shop for
affordable college options, allowing them to calculate their personalized financial aid estimates across
5,600 U.S. colleges and compare them in one, centralized format for college costs. Serving at least
10,000 students through its platform, College Ábaco will break down the language and cost barriers that
too often deter Hispanic students from pursuing higher education.
PARTICIPANTS 2016 College and Career Readiness Working Group
Carol Barash
Founder and CEO
Story2
William Basl
Director, AmeriCorps State and National
Corporation for National and Community
Service
Beth Breger
Executive Director
Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America
(LEDA)
Marie Brown
Senior Advisor to the CEO
Thread
Austin Buchan
Executive Director
College Forward
Alex Castillo
FUSE Corps Executive Fellow
Los Angeles Public Library
Emily Chong
VP, Strategy & Partnerships
NationSwell
Leslie Cornfeld
Special Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of
Education
U.S. Department of Education
Philip Courtney
Chief Executive Officer
Urban Arts Partnership
Brian Culbreth
Vice President, K12 Accounts
The Princeton Review
Aimee Eubanks Davis
Founder & CEO
Braven
Alison De Lucca
Executive Director
Southern California College Access Network
Charlie Desmond
Inversant CEO
Inversant
Joe Dougherty
Partner
Dalberg
Kiah Duggins
Chief of Staff, WSU Student Government
Association
The Princess Project
Cory Eyler
Senior Vice President, General Manager
ed2go, a Cengage Learning Company
Tina Fernandez
Executive Director
Achieve Atlanta
Cornelius Tyrone Finley
Director, College and Career Readiness
Diploma Plus
Jennifer Friend
Chief Executive Officer
Project Hope Alliance
Caroline Frye Burruss
Advisory Board, Partnerships
The Respect Institute
Jae Gardner
Chief Executive Officer
The Ivy Key, Inc.
Noah Geisel
Founder & Lead Ideation Partner
Verses Education, LLC
Bob Giannino
Chief Executive Officer
uAspire
Sharun Goodwin
Deputy Commissioner
NYC Department of Probation
Jessica D. Johnson
Executive Director
The Scholarship Academy, Inc.
Virgil J. Jones, Jr.
Chief Executive Officer
Bottom Line, Inc.
Laura Keane
Vice President, Innovation and Partnerships
uAspire
Sarah Kirschenbaum
Program Director, College Readiness &
Retention
ECMC Foundation
Traci Kirtley
Chief Program Officer
College Possible National
AiLun Ku
Chief Operating and Programs Officer
The Opportunity Network
Sandra Lafleur
Vice President, Program
Summer Search
Elaine Larson
Manager, Instructional Design
National Geographic Society
Mike Larson
Program Manager, UBS NextGen Leaders
UBS
Brit Liggett
President
Show the Good
Vivian Louie
Program Officer
William T. Grant Foundation
Jenni Luke
Chief Executive Officer
Step Up
Ellen Magnis
Executive Director
Minds Matter
Amrita Mahbubani
Co-founder
The EKTA Foundation
Ashok Mahbubani
Founder and CEO
The EKTA Foundation
Kyle Malone
Senior Manager, Parnterships
Grantmakers for Education
Michael Marriner
Co-founder
Roadtrip Nation
Jim McCorkell
Founder & CEO
College Possible
Aaron Miner
Director, Service Year Expansion
NYC Service, Office of the Mayor
Asim Mishra
Chief of Staff
Corporation for National and Community
Service
Tiffany Morgan
Corporate, Foundation and Government
Partnerships
Lions Clubs International Foundation
Christine Morin
Chief Growth & External Affairs Officer
City Year
Karen Niemi
President and CEO
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and
Emotional Learning (CASEL)
Kim Oppelt
Education and Outreach
Hobsons Education
Alison Overseth
Executive Director
Partnership for After School Education (PASE)
Jessica Pliska
Founder & CEO
The Opportunity Network
Ricshawn Roane
Chief of Staff
Jack Kent Cooke Foundation
Shirley Sagawa
President and CEO
Service Year Alliance
Charles Salter
President
BUILD
Kristina Scott
Executive Director
Alabama Possible
Jamie Sears
Head, Strategic Partnerships
UBS
Abigail Seldin
Vice President, Innovation; Co-founder,
College Abacus
ECMC Group; College Abacus
Devon Skerritt
Assistant Director, Hegi Career Center
Southern Methodist University
Christel Slaughter
Project Director
Louisiana Calling/SSA Consultants
William Slaughter
President
SSA Consultants/LA Calling
Kori Sanchez Smith
Social Emotional Learning Coordinator
Atlanta Public Schools
Andrea Soonachan
Executive Director, College and Career
Planning
NYC Department of Education
Ronald J. Stefanski
Executive Director, Strategic Alliances
Cengage Learning
Lincoln Stephens
Chief Executive Officer
Marcus Graham Project
Michelle Tafel
Chief Strategy and Advancement Officer
College Summit
Jenise Terrell
Senior Director, Strategy & Development
Public Allies, Inc.
Kim Thomas-Barrios
Executive Director
USC Educational Partnerships
Pat Upshaw-Monteith
President and CEO
Leadership Atlanta
Alyse Vail
Community Investment Officer
Women's Fund of Central Indiana
Jane Walsh
Managing Director, Development &
Partnerships
Spark Program
Scott Warren
Executive Director
Generation Citizen
Yolanda Watson Spiva
President and CEO
College Success Foundation
Torie Weiston-Serdan
Chief Executive Officer
The Youth Mentoring Action Network
Dana D. Williams
Education Services Manager
Denver Office of Economic Development
Denise Durham Williams
Executive Director
Student Sponsor Partners
Jermaine Wright
University Director
CUNY Black Male Initiative
Perry Yeatman
Chief Executive Officer
Yeatman Global Partners
Don Yu
Director, Better Make Room Campaign
Civic Nation
Rebecca Zylberman
Director, US Partnerships and Program
Development
British Council
