News & Updates
Dr. Karen A. Stout, who has led Achieving the Dream (ATD) through a period of steady growth, innovation, and influence in meeting the changing needs of the nation’s community colleges and other institutions that provide a foothold for poverty-impacted students, adult learners, and first-generation students in higher education, will step down as ATD’s president and CEO, effective June 30, 2026, the ATD Board of Directors announced today.
Dr. Stout helped transform ATD from a nascent nonprofit into a dynamic and entrepreneurial organization that has been one of the driving forces leading community college improvement and transformation. ATD’s Network includes more than 300 community colleges and 33 Tribal Colleges and Universities, and its work has reached more than 500 open access colleges.
“Achieving the Dream is a special organization. I love everything about it. And it is in a terrific place to thrive into the future.” Dr. Stout said. “In fact, the organization couldn’t be on more solid ground. It is ready for its next climb and for a new leader to take the organization to the next level of development. And I am ready for my next climb.”
She describes her decision to step away as “a self-imposed sabbatical” to give her the time and space to determine how and where she can continue to make a difference.
“Leaving a place you love is a difficult decision. But in the back of my head, I hear my father’s advice about managing transitions. He wrote to me that ‘successful people know how to make change work to their advantage and grow because they can handle it. I know you can handle it. Be good and keep hustling,’” Dr. Stout said.
Reactions from the ATD Board
“This is a challenging time for higher education, but Dr. Stout has put ATD in a strong position for the future,” said Dr. Gregory D. Williams, president of Odessa College and chairman of the Achieving the Dream Board of Directors. “With Dr. Stout’s leadership, ATD has transformed from a small nonprofit advancing a narrowly focused reform strategy to a comprehensive organization that supports campus-wide institutional change by focusing on student success through college completion and beyond. Today, the organization has a strong leadership team, a staff with significant expertise up and down the roster, a diversified funding stream, and, most importantly, the organization is well respected by college leaders, policy makers, funders, and partners.”
“Dr. Karen Stout has been a scholar-practitioner who has worked in the trenches with hundreds of community colleges and has helped us define what community colleges will look like and what they will be for in the 21st century,” said Dr. Pam Eddinger, president of Bunker Hill Community College and former chair of the ATD Board of Directors. “But Karen also has been an institution builder, positioning ATD as a powerful force helping community colleges become results oriented, student focused, and sustainable.”
Building from previous experience
Dr. Stout’s hustling has been evident from the moment she took over at ATD. Her first day was July 1, 2015, the day after her final day as president of Montgomery County Community College (Pennsylvania) where she served for more than 14 years, beginning in 2001. Upon her departure from the college, she was granted emeritus status, and the Student Success Center was named in her honor.
At Montgomery she put student voice at the center of the college’s work, introduced new student-focused programs and supports, and benchmarked her college’s progress in bolstering student success against national data on a yearly basis. She partnered with ATD in its early years to help introduce and fine-tune its data-driven approach to community college reform. She was known for building relationships and bringing together a broad range of strategies, and she deeply engaged with business leaders, local funders, and community organizations to help people understand what a community college can do to transform a community. In 2014, she led the college in securing ATD’s coveted Leah Meyer Austin Award. It was this exposure as an ATD president that attracted her to the organization.
Dr. Stout’s most notable achievements at ATD include the following:
- Increasing the organization’s reach by serving more than 300 ATD Network colleges with coaching and services as well as collaborating with 200 additional community colleges and other institutions through grant-funded programs and partnerships.
- Raising more than $150 million over 10 years to learn about and advance important innovations that have led ATD to develop new supports and services for colleges in crucial areas. Under her guidance, ATD has been a leading force among community colleges for adopting key reforms, such as implementing Open Education Resources and customized, holistic student supports as well as using technology to introduce student-directed courseware and strengthen student advising.
- Elevating ATD’s thought leadership to call on institutions to eliminate structural barriers that undermine the success of all students; systematizing efforts to advance excellence in teaching and learning; establishing a bold new access agenda to bring in students previously excluded from college; and coalescing the best thinking about community college transformation and enhancing the value of community colleges to society at large by linking a new focus on post-graduation success to community well-being.
- Mentoring current college presidents in the ATD Network and scores of future community college leaders as part of the Aspen Rising Presidents Fellowship and Aspen New Presidents Fellowship and serving as an advisor to hundreds of current leaders at ATD. Today all ATD Network colleges have access to a leadership coach and a data coach as well as access to Dr. Stout, who personally coaches three colleges.
- Creating a powerful focus on students and their needs through the DREAM Scholar program, which amplifies student voice, and working with ATD to develop strategies, tactics, tools, and guides for leaders, faculty, and staff to understand students and support all aspects of their lives inside and outside of the classroom.
Dr. Stout has also led the development of ATD’s new Community Vibrancy Framework, which is the backbone of ATD’s approach to innovation, coaching, and service delivery. The framework is aimed at expanding access to higher education, creating greater social and economic mobility for more learners and their families, and using the contributions that colleges make to their communities as a central organizing focus of student success.
Dr. Stout said the next phase of her career will aim to build on much of the work she has done with ATD in new ways to advance the student success movement and serve community colleges.
National recognition for leadership
Dr. Stout has received national recognition for her achievements and accomplishments in higher education innovation and leadership.
This year, she received The Diverse Champions Award from Diverse at the American Association of Community Colleges annual meeting — an honor that recognizes higher education leaders who have shown unwavering commitment to equal opportunity and access for all. In 2022, she was presented with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) Leadership Award and entered the organization’s Hall of Fame. In 2024, she received the prestigious Robert Zemsky Medal for Innovation in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Stout currently serves on numerous advisory boards focused on community college leadership, research, and resources, including positions such as chair of the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research at North Carolina State University and as a member of the National Council on the Humanities.
With ample time to allow for a well-planned and methodical transition, the Achieving the Dream Board of Directors will begin a national search later this month with a goal of selecting a new president/CEO for a spring 2026 start to allow for a strong and smooth transition for the organization, Dr. Stout, and her successor.