New York Times bestselling author Heather McGhee will keynote DREAM 2022

Achieving the Dream is pleased to announce that social justice advocate, news media commentator, and New York Times bestselling author Heather McGhee will deliver the keynote address at DREAM 2022, a virtual convening in February to elevate the best thinking in the field of higher education reform.

McGhee is the author of numerous publications and op-eds, including her 2021 book The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, which was a New York Times bestseller and longlisted for the National Book Award. The book critiques the idea that the advances of one ethnic group are gained at the expense of another group (the “zero-sum paradigm”) and advocates for unity in purpose and action for the mutual benefit of all races (what McGhee terms “the solidarity dividend”).

McGhee is an influential voice in the media, having served as a contributor to NBC and regularly appearing on Meet the Press, Morning Joe, The Rachel Maddow Show, and other syndicated programs. She was a featured speaker at the inaugural Obama Foundation Summit in October 2017, and last spring delivered the commencement address at the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy. In January 2022 she will join the faculty of Saint Louis University as Distinguished Lecturer of Urban Studies.

McGhee is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, among them the Pritzker Fellowship at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics (Fall 2019) and Yale University Brady-Johnson Grand Strategy Program Distinguished Practitioner (Fall 2021). She also serves on the boards of several prestigious organizations including Open Society Foundations and Color of Change.

McGhee will join distinguished faculty, leaders, and practitioners from across the higher education field on February 14–17, 2022, for ATD’s 18th annual signature conference. The advancement of racial equity and justice will be a central focus of DREAM 2022 as ATD continues working with its network of over 300 colleges to create equitable hubs of growth and opportunity for the communities they serve.

DREAM 2022 is organized around five key themes that represent opportunities to effect meaningful change in our communities:

• Building stronger pathways to and through postsecondary education
• Adopting a holistic, equity-focused approach to community vitality
• Eliminating systemic barriers to student success
• Fostering a sense of belonging through teaching and learning excellence
• Leveraging data and analytics for institutional and community well-being