REGISTER
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A significant and growing share of students are transferring colleges at least once. Millions more learners have some credit but no credential. And as higher education approaches the demographic cliff, supporting mobile learners via a credit applicability mindset—versus the more traditional, credit-rejective approach—makes sense not only from a student success perspective but also a financial one.
Join this second, critical conversation in a two-part webcast series on supporting transfer and credit mobility, with a focus on reimagining institutional finance to support credit applicability.
Can't attend the webcast? You should still register -- all registrants, including attendees and absentees, will receive a recording of the webcast and a copy of the presentation slides.
Wednesday, May 28, at 2 p.m. E.T.
Sova supports colleges and universities, higher education systems, advocacy and membership organizations, and philanthropies dedicated to student-focused innovation on behalf of bettering outcomes for today’s learners.
PANELISTS
Elizabeth “Liz” Dooley
Former Transfer Student at Virginia Commonwealth University
Elizabeth “Liz” Dooley is a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in Richmond, Virginia, where she is working toward her M.A. in History. She holds a B.S. in Anthropology from VCU (2024) and an A.A. in Liberal Arts from John Tyler Community College (2022). Dooley’s path in higher education was not straightforward–she returned to school in 2021 after more than a decade in the workforce. While attending JTCC, she was involved with the Mellon Pathways Program, which encourages community college students to consider majors within the arts and humanities, as well as providing support for transferring to VCU. After transferring, she was a peer mentor with the program for the remainder of her undergraduate career. As a graduate student, she is serving as the peer mentor coordinator for Pathways and is a teaching assistant for the history department. In addition to being a full-time student, she also works full-time in development for a local nonprofit radio station. Dooley’s experiences as both a transfer student and a Pell Grant recipient have helped shape her perspective regarding credit equivalencies and the affordability of higher education. She is passionate about advocacy for transfer students, especially those who are adult and/or non-traditional, and she is excited to be involved in national efforts to make a difference for current and future students.
Elena Quiroz-Livanis
Deputy Secretary of Higher Education at the Maryland Higher Education Commission
Elena Quiroz-Livanis joined the Maryland Higher Education Commission as deputy secretary of higher education in 2024. Prior, she served as the chief of staff and assistant commissioner of academic policy and student success at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. There, she oversaw the department’s equity agenda and led development of the 10-year system-wide strategic plan focused on racial equity. She also oversaw the department’s initiatives aimed at creating a unified system of transfer and transforming developmental education. Under her leadership and with the support of a fantastic team, Quiroz-Livanis worked with faculty and transfer professionals across the state’s three segments of public higher education to develop statewide transfer maps to over 40 majors. The MassTransfer suite of policies and programs includes a statewide course and equivalency database, General Education Foundation, STEM General Education Foundation, Associate to Baccalaureate Pathways and a Reverse Transfer Pathway. Quiroz-Livanis also worked with Massachusetts public higher education institutions to develop a three-pronged approach to transforming developmental education. These efforts sought to increase the number of students completing college-level English and mathematics courses by using multiple measures to assess student readiness, increasing access to corequisite courses, and building multiple mathematics pathways to ensure students complete the mathematics course appropriate for their major. Quiroz-Livanis is completing her doctorate in higher education at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
George Railey, Jr.
Vice Chancellor for Academic Success at Alamo Colleges District
Dr. George Railey, Jr. has been the vice chancellor for academic success at Alamo Colleges District since January 2018. His extensive career in education includes serving as dean of humanities and social Ssciences at Los Rios Community College District, dean of instructional services/arts and sciences at Columbia College, and interim vice chancellor for educational services and dean of instructional services at Modesto Junior College/Yosemite Community College District. He has also held positions as vice president of academic services at Chabot College, vice chancellor of educational services and institutional effectiveness at State Center Community College District and associate superintendent/vice president of academic affairs at Allan Hancock College. Dr. Railey earned his Ed.D. in higher education administration from the University of the Pacific, along with MME and BME degrees in music education from Eastern Kentucky University. With a wealth of experience in campus and district leadership roles within multi-college districts, he is an expert in pathways models, workforce education, technology and institutional effectiveness. Dr. Railey is actively involved in numerous professional organizations.
Joshua Kim
Assistant Provost for Online Learning Strategy at Dartmouth College
Dr. Joshua Kim is the assistant provost for online learning strategy at Dartmouth and a senior fellow at Georgetown University. Josh has a Ph.D. in sociology and demography from Brown University. He started his career on the faculty at West Virginia University, helped start Britannica.com's education division in San Francisco and was one of the original founders of Quinnipiac University Online. Josh’s published books include, Learning Innovation and the Future of Higher Education and The Low-Density University: 15 Scenarios for Higher Education. Both books are from Johns Hopkins University (JHU) Press, and both came out in 2020. His latest co-authored JHU book, Recentering Learning: Complexity, Resilience and Adaptability in Higher Education, was published in December of 2024. Josh is best known for his Learning Innovation blog on InsideHigherEd.com, a website that receives over 1.9 million monthly visitors. Josh and his wife Julie, a pediatric oncologist at Dartmouth, live in Hanover, NH. They have two adult daughters.
MODERATOR
Shanna E. Smith Jaggars
Assistant Vice Provost and Director of the Student Success Research Lab at The Ohio State University
Shanna E. Smith Jaggars is assistant vice provost and the director of the Student Success Research Lab at The Ohio State University, where her research focuses on university programs, services and policies that aim to improve student success. Previously, Jaggars was the assistant director of the Community College Research Center, Teachers College, Columbia University. Jaggars has published extensively on student success topics in journals such as The Journal of Higher Education, Economics of Education Review, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, Community College Review, Computers & Education and American Journal of Distance Education. She has also contributed chapters to Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research and the Handbook of Distance Education. Jaggars currently serves as an associate editor for the journal Online Learning. She co-authored the 2015 book Redesigning America’s Community Colleges: A Clearer Path to Student Success, which distills a wealth of research evidence into a playbook for college redesign.