San Antonio College Vice Presidents Selected as Aspen Presidential Fellows

The Aspen Institute College Excellence Program (Aspen) has announced that Dr. Tiffany Hernandez, vice president for Student Success, and Dr. Stella Lovato, vice president for College Services and Nursing Education at San Antonio College, are two of 35 leaders selected for the 2023-24 class of the Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship. This program, delivered in collaboration with the Stanford Educational Leadership Initiative, prepares the next generation of community college presidents to transform institutions to achieve higher and more equitable levels of student success.

Many sitting community college presidents plan to retire in the next decade, creating vacancies and an opportunity to diversify college leadership. Aspen Presidential Fellows represent the next generation of college leadership: this incoming class of Aspen Rising Presidents Fellows is 74 percent women, and 60 percent are people of color. The institutions they represent are also diverse, located in 18 states, from small rural colleges to large urban campuses.

The fellows, selected through a competitive process, will work closely with highly accomplished community college presidents, Aspen leaders, and Stanford University faculty over ten months to learn from field-leading research, define and assess student success at their colleges, and clarify their visions for excellent and equitable outcomes for students while in college and after they graduate.

“Each cohort of the Rising Presidents Fellowship is different,” said Josh Wyner, executive director of the College Excellence Program. “And what they all share is a passion to advance excellence and equity in student outcomes and the commitment to ensure that the colleges they lead continuously improve.”

“SAC is honored to have not one but two college executive team members to be chosen for this highly competitive fellowship,” said Dr. Naydeen González-De Jesús, president of San Antonio College as well as a member of the 2022-23 Rising Presidential Fellows class. “Both Dr. Hernandez and Dr. Lovato have been instrumental in shaping our college into an institution that has been recognized as a leader in higher education.”

Rising Presidents Fellows aspire to enter a college presidency within five years of completing the fellowship. As fellows, they join a network of over 300 forward-thinking peers—155 of whom are sitting college presidents—who are applying grounded and innovative strategies to meet student success challenges in their colleges.

The Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship is made possible by the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, College Futures Foundation, and JPMorgan Chase.

Click here to learn more about Drs. Hernandez and Lovato and the 33 other fellows.

–SAC–