Dr. Sonya Shuler-Okoli is a former Chief Academic Officer & Dean of Academics with over fifteen years of higher education experience from Community Colleges to R1s. She is the immediate Past President of the Georgia Higher Education Alliance, a Member of the Georgia Women in Higher Education, and former Institutional Lead for the National Association of Colleges & Universities. With a devoted heart to teaching, research, and most importantly service to our community. With this, she has held both faculty and administrative positions at the University of Georgia, DeVry University, Georgia Military College, Beulah Heights University, and Capella University. In each of these appointments, her role included Accreditation Re-affirmations, Faculty Training and Development, Academic/Student Affairs, Program Evaluation & Assessments, and Student Advisement & Engagement. As a scholar-practitioner, with a broad range of work specializing in Sociopolitical Education, her research focuses on DEI & Student Retention for Minority students. Dr. Okoli has been published in several professional journals, and online publications along with facilitator-led conference sessions at Arizona State University’s Teacher College, Harvard University College of Education Urban Institute, Black Doctoral Network, the American Academy of Advanced Thinking, and the University of South Carolina First Year and Transition Studies. Dr. Okoli also served as Principal Researcher for The Wallace Foundation’s “Principal Pipeline Project” a P-16 initiative that included our nation’s top Urban District Superintendents and Deputy Commissioners of Education about their role in the recruitment of school leaders from HBCUs.