Owensboro Community & Technical College’s Academic Dean, Dr. Stacy Edds-Ellis has been selected as an Ambassador for the national College in High School Alliance (CHSA).
The CHSA is excited to announce the launch of the CHSA Ambassadors Network, an advisory panel of practitioners, policymakers, and experts from the wider dual enrollment, concurrent enrollment, and early college high school community. The CHSA Steering Committee carefully selected 15 stakeholders from the college in high school program community to help collaborate to make a positive impact on policies and to build broad support for programs that enable high school students to enroll in affordable college pathways leading to postsecondary degrees and credentials. These ambassadors, intentionally drawn from different sectors of the work, regions of the country, K-12, higher education, career and technical education, and recent student alumni, will help guide CHSA’s work, particularly as it focuses on closing equity gaps and ensuring high quality for participation in these programs.
“At Owensboro Community and Technical College, we understand the importance of leveraging policy to help encourage more low income and underrepresented students to participate in college in high school programs,” said Dr. Stacy Edds-Ellis, Dean of Academic Affairs for Owensboro Community and Technical College, KY. “In 2016, Owensboro was announced as one of the participating institutions in the Department of Education’s experimental site for dual enrollment. I am pleased to serve as a CHSA Ambassador to share what we have learned about reaching these important and underserved student populations.”
Edds-Ellis has been at OCTC since 2002, when she started her career building the Discover College program. She became the Director of OCTC’s first Title III Strengthening Institutions grant in 2006, and served as an Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in 2010, spearheading the college’s regional accreditation efforts. In her new role as Dean, she continues to lead the OCTC Discover College program in addition to the Division of Professional and Technical Studies’ Departments of Manufacturing and Skilled Trades; Business, Health, and Public Service; and Nursing.
In 2006, Edds-Ellis was a KCTCS New Horizons Staff Award recipient. She was recently awarded the University Faculty Excellence in Part-time Teaching Award from Western Kentucky University, where she has taught in the WKU Leadership program since 2014. She serves on the Goodfellow’s Club of Owensboro Board of Directors and the Newton Parrish Site Base Council. Nationally, she is on the Ambassadors Network for the College in High School Alliance.