By Kyle Southern, Ph.D.
True advocacy isn’t just speaking on behalf of someone. It is actively clearing the path, pulling up an extra chair, and ensuring that student voices aren’t just heard, but driving the decisions that affect our futures.
Guillermo Franco, a rising senior electrical engineering student at the University of Illinois Chicago, reminded everyone attending the Partnership for College Completion’s 10-year anniversary event on August 20 of what advocacy in action looks like. And when everyone in the audience heard these words, we knew they were right.
During the past month, the PCC team marked our first decade of advocacy and impact across Illinois. Our 10th anniversary celebration brought together policymakers, institutional leaders, funders, partners, and friends of PCC to reflect on our story to date and look ahead to PCC’s next chapter. This event gave us an opportunity to honor the people who laid the foundation for the work we are now building. The long roster for gratitude included founding executive director Dr. Kyle Westbook, my immediate predecessor Dr. Lisa Castillo Richmond, and the funders, partners, and policymakers who have been critical parts of PCC’s story. It also included our past and present board and staff members.
Over 10 years, PCC has built a well-earned reputation for data-informed advocacy to improve policies and practices, all oriented toward realizing the goal of a more equitable higher education system in Illinois. But partnership is the first word in our name for a reason, and we take it seriously–because getting transformative initiatives done requires a broad approach. As we enter our second decade, we’ll continue to work in close collaboration with our advocacy partners and the leaders of colleges and universities across the state. Our age has changed, but the essence of our work remains the same. It’s the right work for Illinois students.
Another student speaker at our 10th anniversary event made the power of higher education–and the purpose of our mission–all the more clear. Maya McGrew, a 2026 graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University, noted the threats posed to higher education posed by a federal administration undermining any effort to transform the field into a more equitable version of itself. She reminded us that rooms, “full of people who still believe education opens doors, uplifts families, and builds a more informed public more important than ever.”
PCC honored a legislative leader who has championed opening doors of opportunity for more students: Illinois Senate Majority Leader Kimberly A. Lightford. We recognized her leadership for adequate and equitable funding of Illinois’ public universities. She reminded us, “if we want to have an educated population in Illinois that can drive our economy forward, we simply can’t afford to keep doing things the same way.”
By the time PCC Student Board Member Emilia Ibarra-Franco closed the program, the presenters had all reminded the room of PCC’s journey as a research-backed advocate for greater equity in our state’s higher education system and, ultimately, the empowerment that comes for students and their communities when they complete their degrees. I thought of each investment of time, money, and professional commitment as what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would call stones of hope. Collectively, those stones provide the foundation for the next decade of PCC’s work.
Just a few weeks before the 10th anniversary event, I marked one year as Executive Director of PCC. During the past year, I have had the opportunity to meet more than 100 leaders across the advocacy, philanthropic, community organizing, labor, and policymaking fields. I have been struck by the shared commitment to sustaining and doubling down on our collective commitment to advancing educational equity. From the terrorizing of Chicago communities by ICE agents to threats against university research funding, the stakes of our work in Illinois cannot be more clear for our students and our collective future. I am proud of the team PCC has built to do our part in spite of these challenges.
As I look ahead to my second year and our team continues to build on PCC’s decade of impact to date, I am excited to release our new strategic plan this fall. It will point the way toward a bold agenda focused on accelerating student success and affirming an equity-oriented higher education system. We will maintain our commitment to focus on students across Illinois while pushing our state to become a national model for advancing equitable completion. We will lead with our values and work alongside our coalition partners toward shared goals.
We’ll keep clearing paths and opening doors of opportunity with renewed energy. In PCC’s second decade as much as our first, that is the work our mission–and the stories of students statewide–calls us to do.