Contact: Ralph Newell
Phone: 703.385.2981
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Karen A. Stout to receive the 2025 Diverse Champions Award
FAIRFAX, Va. — Diverse: Issues In Higher Education is pleased to announce that Dr. Karen A. Stout will be this year’s recipient of the Diverse Champions Award.
Since 2015, Stout has served as president and CEO of Achieving the Dream (ATD), leading a network of over 300 community colleges working to become profoundly accessible hubs of learning, credentialing, and economic mobility that eliminate inequities in educational and workforce outcomes. ATD’s capacity building and coaching supports have reached more than 500 primarily open access institutions, including a large number of minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and Tribal colleges and universities.
In 2022, she was awarded the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Leadership Award and entered the organization’s Hall of Fame. She was named the American Association for Women in Community College’s Woman of the Year in 2017, one of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education’s leading women in 2018, one of Washington Monthly’s 16 most innovative higher education leaders in 2016, to Washingtonian’s 500 most influential people list in 2023, and one of Ed Tech ’s 30 higher education IT influencers to follow in 2023. She is also the recipient of the Robert Zemsky Medal for Innovation in Higher Education.
Prior to serving as president and CEO at ATD, Stout was president of Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) (PA) from 2001 to 2015, where she led the college through a transformation process to improve student success. The college distinguished itself as an ATD Leader College, earning the prestigious Leah Meyer Austin Award in 2014 for its college-wide approach to student success.
Stout maintains a laser focus on developing strategies for enhancing student success and completion, accelerating and scaling innovation, and strategic planning as well as on trends facing higher education and launching a new era of community college fundraising. She has made an immeasurable impact on countless communities and is lauded for her accomplishments in higher education innovation and leadership.
About this award:
The Diverse Champions Award recognizes higher education leaders who have shown unwavering commitment to equal opportunity and access for all, particularly at the community college level.
The award was created by Diverse: Issues In Higher Education in 2012 upon the retirement of the inaugural Diverse Champions Award winner, Dr. John E. Roueche, as director of the Community College Leadership Program (CCLP) at the University of Texas at Austin. Of the more than 500 CCLP graduates produced during his 40-plus year tenure at CCLP, more than 60% are women and people of color.
The award is given to individuals who have made similarly extraordinary contributions to the world of higher education. Learn more about past winners here, including the 2024 recipient of the award, Dr. Keith Curry.
This year’s Diverse Champions Award will be presented to Stout during the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) annual meeting to be held April 12-16 in Nashville, Tenn.The April 3rd edition of Diverse will contain a tribute to her leadership.
For four decades, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education has been America’s premier source of timely news, provocative commentary, insightful interviews and in-depth special reports on diversity in higher education. Savvy individuals who appreciate the crucial and ever-changing role that higher education plays in the lives of student and professionals, and their families and communities, make reading Diverse a regular habit.
Phone: 703.385.2981
Email: [email protected]
Dr. Karen A. Stout to receive the 2025 Diverse Champions Award
FAIRFAX, Va. — Diverse: Issues In Higher Education is pleased to announce that Dr. Karen A. Stout will be this year’s recipient of the Diverse Champions Award.
Since 2015, Stout has served as president and CEO of Achieving the Dream (ATD), leading a network of over 300 community colleges working to become profoundly accessible hubs of learning, credentialing, and economic mobility that eliminate inequities in educational and workforce outcomes. ATD’s capacity building and coaching supports have reached more than 500 primarily open access institutions, including a large number of minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and Tribal colleges and universities.
In 2022, she was awarded the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Leadership Award and entered the organization’s Hall of Fame. She was named the American Association for Women in Community College’s Woman of the Year in 2017, one of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education’s leading women in 2018, one of Washington Monthly’s 16 most innovative higher education leaders in 2016, to Washingtonian’s 500 most influential people list in 2023, and one of Ed Tech ’s 30 higher education IT influencers to follow in 2023. She is also the recipient of the Robert Zemsky Medal for Innovation in Higher Education.
Prior to serving as president and CEO at ATD, Stout was president of Montgomery County Community College (MCCC) (PA) from 2001 to 2015, where she led the college through a transformation process to improve student success. The college distinguished itself as an ATD Leader College, earning the prestigious Leah Meyer Austin Award in 2014 for its college-wide approach to student success.
Stout maintains a laser focus on developing strategies for enhancing student success and completion, accelerating and scaling innovation, and strategic planning as well as on trends facing higher education and launching a new era of community college fundraising. She has made an immeasurable impact on countless communities and is lauded for her accomplishments in higher education innovation and leadership.
About this award:
The Diverse Champions Award recognizes higher education leaders who have shown unwavering commitment to equal opportunity and access for all, particularly at the community college level.
The award was created by Diverse: Issues In Higher Education in 2012 upon the retirement of the inaugural Diverse Champions Award winner, Dr. John E. Roueche, as director of the Community College Leadership Program (CCLP) at the University of Texas at Austin. Of the more than 500 CCLP graduates produced during his 40-plus year tenure at CCLP, more than 60% are women and people of color.
The award is given to individuals who have made similarly extraordinary contributions to the world of higher education. Learn more about past winners here, including the 2024 recipient of the award, Dr. Keith Curry.
This year’s Diverse Champions Award will be presented to Stout during the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) annual meeting to be held April 12-16 in Nashville, Tenn.The April 3rd edition of Diverse will contain a tribute to her leadership.
For four decades, Diverse: Issues In Higher Education has been America’s premier source of timely news, provocative commentary, insightful interviews and in-depth special reports on diversity in higher education. Savvy individuals who appreciate the crucial and ever-changing role that higher education plays in the lives of student and professionals, and their families and communities, make reading Diverse a regular habit.
