2025 Congress Day 1: A 'Global AI Race' Drives Calls to Reimagine Community College
The 2025 ACCT Community College Leadership Congress kicked off in New Orleans Wednesday with calls to reimagine community colleges for a changing world.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry described the nation’s changing economic and education landscapes, noting the opportunities emerging from AI and the reshoring of manufacturing. He pointed to his state’s diversifying economy, including $70 billion in new investments by companies including Meta and Hyundai that will bring 70,000 new jobs to the state. “The thing that keeps me up at night is ensuring that we have the workforce necessary to fill those jobs,” Landry said. “Step into the breach as our education systems are changing… and you will be part of writing America’s next great renaissance.”
Keynote speaker Ahmad Thomas, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, urged community college leaders to “widen your aperture and be visionaries.” His big-picture message: Community college leaders must exercise their vision, courage, purpose with respect to their role in developing a technology-savvy workforce.
“The opportunities that we have before us that are powered by AI, that are powered by innovation, are economically and socially transformative,” Thomas said. “If you’re not fully on board at least in recognizing the power of this technology, you better find a way to get on the bus, because it’s moving and the opportunities are very real.”
Thomas stressed that community colleges have the potential to surface the “hidden talent” among nontraditional students that will be needed to meet workforce needs in AI and other fields.
“When we talk about a global race around AI which is going to set the path for the next great superpower, it’s going to be driven by workforce,” he said. “Your purpose in providing educational opportunities for all of those high potential individuals [who] traditional recruiting and metrics might not catch makes your purpose all the more urgent. There’s literally a math problem that has got to be solved… to meet the demands we need to win this global AI race.”
ACCT Chair Rich Fukutaki added that AI and artificial general intelligence (AGI) will bring “a sea change in higher education.”
“As community college leaders, we are responsible for leading on behalf of our communities.... We need to realize that productive innovation is a perspective and a value system that applies tools like AI to the needs of our students,” said Fukutaki, a trustee at Bellevue College in Washington. “It’s going to require a lot of us—attention, planning, engagement, and perhaps most importantly, we must support our leaders as they try out new ideas.”
ACCT President and CEO Jee Hang Lee welcomed the more than 1,800 ACCT Leadership Congress guests and urged them to stay plugged into the association's advocacy communications throughout the year, celebrating the passing of Workforce Pell Grants program after a decade of ardent advocacy. He referred members to the latest issue of Trustee Quarterly for more information, as well as to read about ACCT's new 2026-2028 strategic priorities, which focus on advocacy and trustee education with an emphasis on thought leadership, relationships, and communication. Lee also announced the launch of a new Global Workforce Coalition to build on the association's current U.S.-U.K. Community College and Technical Education Exchange and India-U.S. Partnership Lab.
N2N President and CEO Kiran Kodithala encouraged community college leaders to champion AI literacy in their communities. “AI is here to stay, and the best chance for success is for community colleges to be the leaders and drive outcomes,” he said.
Earlier Wednesday, Congress attendees participated in pre-conference workshops on student success, childcare needs and student parents, and dual enrollment. Leaders from Texas and California discussed their state’s investments in dual enrollment and its impact on colleges, students, and communities.
“Ethically, it’s the right thing to do,” said Naomi Castro, director of programs for the Career Ladders Project. “Dual enrollment not only sets high expectations for young people, but they prove over and over again that they can meet those high expectations when you provide support…. If you want a skilled and critical thinking populace, and if we still value a college education, this is a reason to invest in it.”
ACCT released two new papers that profile the rise and growth of dual-enrollment pathways in the states of Texas and California.
2025 ACCT Congress Day 2: Celebrating Attainment Gains as New Challenges Emerge
During the second day of the 2025 ACCT Leadership Congress, keynote speaker Jamie Merisotis celebrated community colleges’ role in dramatic postsecondary attainment gains—but stressed much more needs to be done.
“Trustees play an undeniable central role in all of this, from reimagining traditional business models to working even more closely with employers and businesses to expanding the leadership capacity of the people who oversee, lead, and work in community colleges, which is what this conference is all about,” Merisotis, Lumina Foundation’s president and CEO, told attendees on Thursday.
Lumina’s original goal, announced in 2008, was to increase the percentage of working-age adults with postsecondary degrees or credentials to 60 percent. Since then, the percentage of adults with those credentials has increased from 38 to 55 percent, which Merisotis calls “one of the most significant and underreported social change movements of the past two decades.”
“Community colleges played an indisputable role in making that possible,” he said.
Earlier this year, Lumina Foundation introduced a new goal—to increase the percentage of the labor force with postsecondary credentials to 75 percent by 2040. But those credentials, Merisotis added, must have value for both students and workforce needs.
“We’re shifting our focus beyond simply attaining credentials to making sure they deliver measurable financial returns and broader social benefits,” he told trustees.
Merisotis also called the 42 million Americans who have some college but no degree “an acknowledgement that many, perhaps most, of today’s students actually need support to graduate. The education system must modernize its support to today’s students, helping them to stay on track and finish their programs.”
Merisotis also urged trustees to take on a more central role “to more effectively communicate with all our constituents… about the critical importance of higher education to our future.”
“In the face of a flood of negative or distorted narratives, we’ve got to do a better job of telling the story of higher education in America today.”
ACCT Excel
ACCT President and CEO Jee Hang Lee announced the launch of ACCT Excel, a new badging program that organizes governance education into pathways to build a strong foundation in governance, advocacy, legal responsibilities, and board best practices.
"The badges and certificates you will receive by completing guided education are intended to demonstrate your commitment, your engagement, and your knowledge and experience levels as community college trustees," Lee said.
"While ACCT Excel is not a formal credentialing program, it will serve as a pathway to guide board members to a standard of excellence. We will pilot the ACCT Excel badging program this fall, establishing a first cohort to work out the details before launching the program nationwide."
Policy Matters
Also Thursday, Congress attendees were briefed on the evolving federal landscape by ACCT and American Association of Community College (AACC) policy experts. “Things are moving very quickly… that is frequently how it is during the first 100 days of any administration,” Carrie Warick-Smith, ACCT vice president of public policy, told attendees. “But this one certainly set a new pace, and we haven’t really seen a slowdown yet.”
The ongoing government shutdown, which entered its 23rd day on Thursday, remains top of mind. “We’re still at the same place where we were 23 days ago with neither side blinking,” said José Miranda, ACCT director of government relations.
David Baime, AACC senior vice president of government relations, stressed that advocacy has been critical during the course of the year, helping result in better outcomes for the sector in appropriation bills and the reconciliation bill passed this summer.
“The moral of the story is that when we take our case and make our arguments to the legislature, we can be pretty successful,” Baime said. “In a time with a lot of uncertainty and turbulence, advocacy remains just as important and impactful as it ever has been.”
Global Workforce Coalition
ACCT's Global Workforce Coalition officially launched on Thursday with the mission to bring together colleges, industry, government, and other partners to advance global workforce development in critical areas.
At globally focused sessions throughout the day, trustees, presidents, and industry partners discussed the skills students need to succeed in an interconnected workforce and world, reviewed lessons learned from ACCT’s current UK and India initiatives, and strategized on how to engage more students and geographic areas. ACCT congratulates Dallas College and Hudson County Community College on their selection to participate in the next cohort of the US-UK Community College and Technical Education Exchange, a collaboration between ACCT and the UK Association of Colleges (AoC).
ACCT is grateful to inaugural supporters of the Global Workforce Coalition and its projects: The Cyril Taylor Foundation, Cognizant, and Ellucian. To learn more, contact ACCT Vice President for Membership and Educational Services Robin Matross Helms at [email protected].
ACCT Regional Impact and Success, Professional Board Staff, and Faculty Member Awards winners were also recognized on Thursday during the Membership Celebration luncheon.
ACCT Regional Awards winners were announced in August, and the winners of regional awards from all five categories are the finalists for the nationally recognized ACCT Association Awards, were announced for the first at the ACCT Awards Gala on Friday night.
2025 ACCT Congress Day 3: An ‘iPhone Moment’ for AI in Higher Ed
An expert on artificial intelligence in higher education warned ACCT Congress attendees Friday that the technology is poised to disrupt education the same way the iPhone did after it was introduced in 2007.
“How many people thought the iPhone was going to change the way we fundamentally live and learn?” asked keynote speaker Dr. Claire Brady, president of Glass Half Full Consulting and cofounder of the Association of Higher Education Consulting and Coaching. “This is our iPhone moment, in particular for community colleges, to jump in and… be absolutely the leaders in this area. You are built for this moment.”
Brady urged community college leaders to focus on protecting quality teaching and learning “at all costs,” as well as safeguarding student data and privacy and having “open, transparent conversations” about the impact on their workforce and the environment. Students, too, need clear policies around appropriate use of the technology, as well as “more skill building around the use of AI, not just making tools available to them,” Brady added.
Brady noted that AI adoption is “80 percent about the people and 20 percent about the technology.”
"Where,” she asked, “are you putting your efforts?”
“The future is now, and your guidance has never mattered more… You’re not governing a technology adoption. You’re governing a mission critical transformation that happens to be enabled by technology,” she said, urging leaders to “protect what matters the most—the mission.”
If community colleges lead, “you will become your regional AI workforce partner,” Brady said. “If you wait, universities and other private providers will fill that gap… they won’t do it as well as you do it, and they won’t necessarily include the same voices that you would.”
Also Thursday, representatives from industry partners including Lightcast, Oracle, NexusEdge, SME, and Trane discussed employers' rapidly changing demand for skills. Over the last three years, over 30 percent of jobs have seen a 50 percent change in the skills required for them, Lucas Rae, Lightcast account executive, told attendees. Fully half of jobs which include AI skills in their qualifications are outside of the IT and computer fields, he added. “It’s transformative and crossing over boundaries,” he said.
Another panel of community college presidents discussed how short-term credentials such as microcredentials and custom training programs help provide these kinds of skills for employers. Edmonds Community College President Amit Singh discussed the need for “lifelong advising” to accompany emerging lifelong learning offerings. “It’s a new kind of model where we stay in touch with you as long as it takes to get you to the next level,” he said.
The 2025 ACCT Congress concludes today with the ceremonial passing of the gavel to Incoming Chair Carol Del Carlo, regent of the Nevada System of Higher Education, and keynote speaker Dr. Jennifer Fernandez, dean of nursing and former student at Delgado Community College.
Learn more about the 2025 ACCT Leadership Congress.