Staff Spotlight: Five Questions with Jessica Collis. Get to know our Director of Advocacy and Change Management
Today, get to know Jessica Collis: A Director of Advocacy and Change Management with HCM Strategists.
Jessica Collis is passionate about empowering individuals to overcome obstacles created by poverty and social disenfranchisement. As HCM’s director of postsecondary advocacy and change management, she leads initiatives on student advocacy, systems change, and emerging degree pathways, including transfer policies and dual enrollment opportunities. Jessica manages projects for Lumina Foundation’s Strategy Labs and HCM’s Courage and Hidden Collaborative, focusing on postsecondary value, affordability, and degree attainment.
A Chicago native, Jessica earned her bachelor’s degree in international relations at Beloit College and holds a certificate in project management from Georgetown University. She enjoys exploring Washington, D.C., and discovering new brunch spots.
We’re lucky to have a team with diverse lived experiences. Tell us about your background and how you found your way to this work.
→ I am a dual US-UK citizen – I was born in England and then raised in the suburbs of Chicago. My parents supported my curiosity and encouraged my interest in history, politics, and culture from a young age. They always stressed the importance of taking my education seriously because of the opportunities it had provided each of them. I couldn’t wait to go to college to study what I wanted and took my college search process very seriously. I attended Beloit College, a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin, and my work-study assignment was in Beloit’s admissions office. Not only was I going to school with people who came from all over the world and had completely different life experiences than I did, but I also saw the admissions process from the other side and how hard the counselors and financial aid administers worked to make attending college a reality for prospective students, and the complexities that come with that type of hands-on, day-to-day work of helping students navigate the process of going to college. Little did I know that my work-study job would be my first step towards where I am today.
Since I began working at HCM nearly a decade ago, I’ve had the opportunity to hold almost every role imaginable at HCM! By “growing up” at HCM, I’ve been fortunate enough to learn from some of the most respected leaders in the policy field and witness some pretty transformative changes in higher education. Along the way, I’ve been able to have a hand in some of HCM’s most important client initiatives and grow my skills in everything from event planning to developing and managing budgets, from project management to business development and client relations, and from coalition-building and legislative engagement to leading qualitative focus groups and large-scale surveys.
HCM is dedicated to making educational systems more accessible, affordable, accountable, and equitable. What drives you to do this work?
→ HCM was built on the premise that good policy can improve people’s lives. I believe this and know my colleagues do, too. That’s why we’re at HCM and do our work.
What drives me to what I do at HCM is my educational experience itself. I loved my college experience and am deeply thankful for it, yet I was always going to go to college. For me, learning was something I did both inside and, perhaps more importantly, outside the classroom, as I saw how friends and classmates had to navigate a system that wasn’t built for them, even with the many supports Beloit offered its students.
I truly believe that everyone has the right to be educated, that education enables and leads to economic stability and mobility, and that everyone deserves access to affordable opportunities after high school that deliver on the promise of building a better, stable life.
Policy, and not just higher education policy, can change lives, and I would rather it be for the better.
Is there a particular data point that animates your work right now and what is it? Why?
→ According to a study released last month by Gallup and the Lumina Foundation, 36% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in higher education, and 32% have little or no confidence.
This shows that the public is divided on higher education, but not as much as we would believe. There are so many benefits to pursuing education after high school. Yet, the national narrative has been overwhelmingly negative for years despite significant innovations made by policymakers and institutions alike to increase opportunities for current and future students.
What type of client work and impact do you want to see HCM make over the next five years/in the future?
→ I would love to see us expand our opinion research and use it to begin to chip away the negative perception of higher education. I’ve had the opportunity to work across all of HCM’s higher education opinion research, which has been focused on understanding the value and return on investment of choosing or not choosing to attend college, and there is so much more to learn at the state and regional levels and about the information that people receive about their options after high school.
Data are so important to what we do, but how we change the narrative and show the value of higher education will be in how we present our findings and tell these stories in order to change hearts and minds. And in a way that people can understand and find accessible and relatable.
I also want us to continue to make connections to the workforce and economic development and build partnerships with the business community to better serve students and provide them with the skills to advance their careers and be upwardly mobile while closing employment gaps
When not working, what can people find you doing?
→ You can find me out and about exploring D.C.’s history and culture or new or new-to-me restaurants and wine bars with my friends. D.C. is a foodie city; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!
I love pop culture and often walk around the city listening to podcasts or books. I watch a lot of documentaries, and for the past few years, I have been tracking how many documentary films and series I watch – I’m up to 33 thus far this year. My cat, Ruby, is often my watching companion.
I have also modeled my love of antiquing after my mom. My apartment is filled with antiques I’ve acquired over the years.
