Dr. Antonio R. Flores has served as president and CEO of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) for twenty-five years. Flores has been a leading advocate for Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and Hispanic higher education success. Under his leadership, HSIs have garnered over $5 billion in federal funding and current appropriations above $500 million annually.

HACU’s membership represents more than 500 colleges and universities that collectively serve two-thirds of the 3.8 million Hispanic students in U.S. higher education across 38 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. HACU also affiliates 30 leading universities in Latin America and Spain.

Flores has received numerous recognitions and honors for his contributions to higher education, including five honorary doctorate degrees from higher education institutions. He serves and has chaired various national boards and commissions. Flores earned a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; a master’s in counseling and personnel from Western Michigan University; and bachelor’s degrees in business administration and elementary education from Universidad de Guadalajara and Centro Normal Regional, Mexico, respectively.

Dr. Carrie Billy, a member of the Navajo Nation, is President & CEO of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC). Through AIHEC, the nation’s 37 Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) work toward Strong Sovereign Nations Through Excellence in TRIBAL Higher Education.

Throughout her career, Billy has focused on developing equity-centered strategic initiatives and innovative policies and programs founded on Tribal culture and values, including AIHEC AIMS, a comprehensive TCU data system, and the Indigenous Evaluation Framework, which incorporates Indigenous epistemology and core tribal values into a framework that integrates place, community, individuality and sovereignty with Western evaluation practice. She has worked to forge partnerships and drafted legislation designating TCUs as “1994 land-grant institutions” and creating a new federal designation for “Hispanic Serving Institutions”. Her career reflects a commitment to public service -- protecting and promoting the cultures, rights and well-being of American Indians and improving the quality of life and educational status of all.

Billy has undergraduate degrees from the University of Arizona and Salish Kootenai College and a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University Law Center. She was appointed by former President William J. Clinton as the inaugural Executive Director of the White House Initiative on Tribal Colleges.

Dr. Lynn Pasquerella was appointed president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities in 2016, after serving as the eighteenth president of Mount Holyoke College. She has held positions as Provost at the University of Hartford and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Rhode Island, where she taught for than two decades. A philosopher whose work has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, Pasquerella has written extensively on medical ethics, metaphysics, public policy, and the philosophy of law. Her most recent book, What We Value: Public Health, Social Justice, and Educating for Democracy, examines the role of higher education in addressing some of the most pressing contemporary issues at the intersection of ethics, law, and public policy. Pasquerella is immediate past president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the host of Northeast Public Radio’s The Academic Minute.

Dr. Jamal Watson is a longtime editor at Diverse: Issues In Higher Education, the nation’s oldest publication committed to reporting on diversity, access and inclusion. A graduate of Georgetown University, Watson earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Georgetown University, a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; a master’s degree in higher education from the University of Delaware and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in African American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. An expert on race and media, Watson is also on the graduate school faculty at Trinity Washington University.