"We Don’t Graduate People Into Poverty”: Reflections on the 2025 Dallas Herring Lecture

Introduction

On November 18, 2025, the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research at North Carolina State University hosted the annual Dallas Herring Lecture. The lecture honors Dr. Dallas Herring and brings together community college leaders from across the nation to explore urgent topics in post‑secondary education. I look forward to attending the #DHL every year, and this year, I was struck by the clarity of the message: our institutions must be designed around economic mobility, not simply access.

Below are my reflections on Dr. Jason Wood's keynote and Sharon Decker's response, along with my own takeaways.

Dr. Jason Wood: We Don’t Graduate People Into Poverty

Dr. Jason Wood, former president of Southwest Wisconsin Technical College and currently serving at Salt Lake Technical College, framed his keynote with a powerful challenge: “We don’t graduate people into poverty." This mantra is more than a slogan. This call to action prompts us to ask whether our students are truly better off after attending our colleges. Wood argued that we should measure the success of our programs by the economic mobility they enable, not merely by enrollment and completion numbers. He reminded us that opportunity without tangible outcomes is an unfulfilled promise.

Dr. Wood described how Southwest Tech critically examined its agriculture programs when graduates were earning $12 to $14 per hour. College leaders met with employers, spoke with alumni and students who had left without finishing, and used that feedback to redesign the curricula. They closed outdated credentials, launched new precision agriculture programs, and added short-term training options. These bold changes persuaded employers to nearly double entry‑level wages. The lesson: if we are willing to rethink our offerings, employers will respond.

Dr. Wood also shared the importance of acknowledging when past practices no longer serve our students. He urged leaders to be honest about what isn’t working and to invest in what makes the greatest difference: our people. At Southwest Tech, every student now develops a personalized success plan before applying. The plan includes career counseling aligned with the local job market, a course schedule with embedded support services, and a financial plan that identifies and fills funding. Wood emphasized that graduation is a milestone, not the finish line; colleges must continue to gather feedback from alumni and employers to ensure their programs yield positive outcomes.

Key Takeaways from Dr. Wood

• Economic mobility as a compass: ask whether students leave college better.

• “Opportunity without outcomes is an unfulfilled promise,” so focus on results.

• Engage employers and alumni: close obsolete programs and create pathways to high‑wage.

• Admit when change is needed: invest in people and prioritize innovations that improve wages and completion.

• Personalized success plans: offer career counseling, course mapping, and financial planning services prior to enrollment.

Sharon Decker: Courage, Humility, and Urgency

Following Dr. Wood’s remarks, Sharon Decker, former North Carolina Secretary of Commerce and senior advisor for long‑term recovery in western North Carolina, responded with a North Carolina perspective. She began by noting that our state’s recognition as the nation’s top destination for business would not be possible without community colleges. Ms. Decker echoed Dr. Herring’s charge to “carry students as far as they can go” and argued that success should be measured by how many graduates secure family‑sustaining jobs, not just how many earn diplomas.

Ms. Decker underscored Dr. Wood’s claim that any college can innovate with courage, humility, and urgency. She challenged leaders to recognize when long‑held practices no longer serve students and to have the courage to try new approaches, even if some efforts failed. Humility, she said, means grounding our leadership in service and defining success by our students’ success. Finally, Ms. Decker warned that we must act with urgency; delaying transformation risks losing an entire generation. She also emphasized the importance of forming strong partnerships with employers. Rather than treating businesses as donors, colleges must spend time with employers to understand current and future workforce needs and design programs accordingly. Only through these relationships can we ensure that our credentials translate into meaningful careers.

Key Takeaways from Sharon Decker

• Community colleges power economic growth: North Carolina’s business success relies on our colleges.

• Measure outcomes by employment: focus on graduates’ ability to earn family‑sustaining wages.

• Innovate with courage, humility, and urgency: challenge outdated practices and lead through service.

• Engage employers as partners: spend time with businesses to align curricula with workforce needs.

• Act now: failure to respond quickly risks losing a generation of students.

Personal Reflection

This lecture resonated deeply with my own mission to help students and their families achieve economic mobility through education. Dr. Wood’s insistence that we refuse to graduate people into poverty and his example of visiting employers and alumni to redesign programs reinforced my belief that student success must be measured by outcomes, not only by access.

The success plan model, which combines career counseling, course mapping, and financial planning, offers a framework that we can adapt to ensure our students arrive with a clear path and the necessary resources to complete it.

Sharon Decker’s emphasis on courage, humility, and urgency reminds me that leadership is not about titles but about serving our students and communities. Challenging entrenched practices may be uncomfortable, but we owe it to our students to innovate. Her call to build genuine relationships with employers aligns with our efforts to integrate work-based learning and design curricula that lead to high-growth careers, as well as with the launch of our new Future-Ready Workforce Alliance.

As we reflect on the 2025 Dallas Herring Lecture, I urge community college practitioners to commit to:

• Redesigning programs and scholarships to eliminate barriers and ensure economic mobility.

• Embedding work‑based learning and real‑world experience across programs.

• Gathering feedback from alumni, employers, and students to continually improve.

• Investing in our faculty and staff to enable them to support students effectively.

• Leading with courage, humility, and a sense of urgency to create a future where no graduate is left behind.

I am grateful to the Belk Center for convening this critical conversation and to Dr. Jason Wood and Sharon Decker for challenging us to think differently.

Together, we can ensure community colleges remain engines of opportunity and advance economic mobility by never graduating anyone into poverty.