Cheryl L. Hyman

Former Chancellor

City Colleges of Chicago

As chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago from 2010 through 2017, Cheryl Hyman was responsible for managing a $700-million budget, overseeing nearly 5,500 employees, and ensuring the success of more than 100,000 students in Chicago’s community college system. Under Hyman’s multi-year Reinvention process, City Colleges’ graduation rate more than doubled and the number of degrees awarded annually reached an all-time high. With Mayor Rahm Emanuel, she launched two signature initiatives: College to Careers, which partners faculty and staff with over 150 companies and universities to align curriculum with workforce demand, and the Star Scholarship, through which hundreds of Chicago Public Schools graduates receive free college each year.

I know poverty's challenges firsthand, so I know they can be overcome. But there is no silver-bullet solution. One area of opportunity we have is to ensure our existing institutions, from schools to prisons to social services, are living up to their promise and contributing, each in their own way, to putting our communities on the path to college and career success.

Cheryl L. Hyman