Pathways to College Completion in the San Joaquin Valley

Dr. Benjamín T. Durán is executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium (CVHEC), an organization that brings together community college, independent, and university CEOs to collaborate on higher education issues in the Central Valley. He retired as superintendent/president of the Merced Community College District in 2012. As a statewide higher education leader, he chaired the California Community College League’s Commission on the Future. He also chaired the Community College League’s CEO Board, which led to his participation in the development of the Chancellor’s Office Statewide Strategic Plan. He served for twelve years on the Chancellor’s Office Economic and Workforce Development Advisory Committee. As a member of the University Committee and Friends of UC Merced Committee, he helped to bring the University of California, Merced campus to the Central Valley. He also served on the UC Merced Board of Trustees; the California State University, Stanislaus Community Advisory Board for Stanislaus State’s Educational Leadership EdD program; and as a faculty member in Stanislaus State’s Education Doctoral program. He is an alliance lead for Complete College America, a national advocate for dramatically increasing college completion rates and closing institutional performance gaps. He earned an EdD in organizational leadership – education at the University of Southern California, a master’s degree in education at Chapman University, and bachelor’s degree in Spanish language and literature at California State University, Stanislaus.

Orquidea Largo is associate vice chancellor for educational partnerships at University of California,  Merced and chief outreach officer. She has helped secure over $42 million in federal, state, and private grants “to provide student, school, and parent-centered services that ultimately result in students having the greatest number of postsecondary choices from the widest array of options upon graduation.” Under her leadership, UC Merced secured an $18 million collaborative grant that supports and funds K–16 initiatives in the Central Valley. She joined UC Merced in 2002 after working at the University of California Office of the President’s Office of Relations with Schools and Colleges. She is an active member of multiple P–20 regional collaboratives and K–16 regional grants in the San Joaquin Central Valley. She is a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum Great Valley Chapter XI and a member of the Cradle-to-Career Community Engagement Board. She served as chair of the University of California’s Student Academic Preparation and Educational Partnerships P–20 Leadership Council, a member of UC’s K–12 Academic Preparation Leadership Council, and a member of the National Academic Assembly Council with the College Board. A native of the San Joaquin Central Valley, she earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling from California State University, Fresno, and an EdD in educational and organizational leadership from the University of the Pacific.

Tressa Overstreet is executive director of college & career readiness with the Fresno Unified School District. She has served the Fresno community as an educator for over 25 years. In 2005, she was introduced to dual enrollment and began her collaborative work with Fresno City College.  She helped open Design Science Middle College High School and then served as principal, with the primary focus of serving first-generation college students and those most underrepresented in postsecondary education. One hundred percent of Design Science students are admitted to four-year universities, many with a STEM focus. Efforts to ensure access to transfer-level math courses led her to develop strategies, protocols, and systems of support to ensure student success. She strives to create and foster many K–16 collaborative partnerships in order to best serve the students of the Central Valley. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Fresno State University.

Olga Rodriguez is director of the PPIC Higher Education Center and a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, where she holds the Thomas and Marilyn Sutton Chair in Higher Education Policy. As center director, she works with a team of researchers to identify programs and policies to help make the state’s higher education system more successful, equitable, and sustainable. Her own research focuses on college access and success among underserved students. Her recent work has examined statewide reforms to developmental education, English as a second language, dual enrollment, and assessment and placement systems in California’s community colleges. Before joining PPIC, she was a postdoctoral research associate at the Community College Research Center at Teachers College, Columbia University. She holds a BA in economics/mathematics and Spanish from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an MA and PhD in economics and education from Columbia University.