Embracing Innovation with Anne Kress

The fastest changes in higher education are hitting the students with the least margin for error and community colleges are the ones standing in the middle of it. I sit down with Dr Anne Kress, President of Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), to get specific about what student success looks like when you serve 76,000 learners across six campuses, including thousands of high school dual enrollment students and working adults balancing jobs, childcare, and long commutes.

We dig into the hard question families keep asking: is college worth it? Anne explains how community colleges can earn trust through higher education accountability, clear return on investment (ROI), and transparent outcomes like transfer savings and wage gains. We also unpack the confusing credential economy and what “market value credentials” should actually mean: industry-recognized credentials tied to real hiring demand, tracked results, and stackable pathways that turn short-term training into college credit so there is no wrong door.

Then we move into generative AI in education and the AI-powered economy growing around Northern Virginia’s data centers. Anne makes the case that students do not always need an AI degree, but they do need AI skill sets inside programs like healthcare, cybersecurity, skilled trades, and IT. On the operations side, we talk about using data and AI to deliver a more personalized learning experience, from smarter transcript evaluation to coaching and career support that helps students stay on track and finish.

If you care about community college leadership, workforce credentials, transfer pathways, and AI for student success, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share the episode with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

eloy@4leggedmedia.com

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Talk

0:10

Hi, this is Eloy Ortiz Oakley, and welcome back to The Rant podcast, the podcast where we pull back the curtain and break down the people, the policies, and the politics of our higher education system. In this episode, I get to welcome Dr. Anne Cress. She is the President of Northern Virginia Community College, or Nova, as most people know it. She's a great friend and colleague. I've known Anne for quite some time, and in my view. One of the best community college presidents out there, so we get a chance to sit down with Anne to talk about what's going on at Nova. How her and her team are dealing with all the changes, whether those be the changes that the Trump administration is promulgated to, the changes that AI is bringing and the growth that they're seeing in the need for workforce credentials and in her team have been at the heart of the changes in Virginia and given their location there in Northern Virginia, really in the middle of all of the growth in AI data centers. the speed and growth and the number of jobs are being created by ai. So Anne will give us a really good perspective on the changes that are coming, changes that are already here, and how a strong community college leader and her team are dealing with those changes. Has tremendous experience in the community colleges, and she will provide our listeners with a good grounding in how to leverage AI to improve the experience of students to improve their employability, and to improve the way that Northern Virginia or any other community college can reach more students at a time when everybody's talking about enrollment cliffs. The fact of the matter remains that higher education, a good post-secondary experience, is in greater demand than ever given the needs of workers and learners throughout this country. So it's great to have Anne here to talk about that and everything else that's going on. For many of you, you'll be. Listening to this podcast while you're attending A-S-U-G-S-V, this podcast airs right in the middle of A-S-U-G-S-V. So if you're at A-S-U-G-S-V, please stop in, say hello. Say hello to Anne and I hope that you enjoyed the summit. This is. Another great opportunity to see all the changes that are happening, to see all the immersive technologies that are growing and taking hold, and for leaders to think about how they're gonna leverage these technologies and this environment to better serve learners regardless of their backgrounds. Learning experience where they're at, how they receive their learning. This is the moment where we begin to personalize an educational experience for every learner. So with that backdrop, please enjoy my conversation with Ann Cress, president of Northern Virginia Community College.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 3:20

Ann, welcome to the Rent podcast.

Anne Kress 3:22

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 3:25

It's great to have you, and you are the first community college president to be on the Rent podcast. We're now in our fourth season can you believe that?

Anne Kress 3:34

I can, given your background, I cannot, and I'm truly honored to be the first community college president. I hope I am one of what will be many community college presidents on The Rantch.

Who NOVA Serves And Why

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 3:45

Well, We had to begin with the Bastan, so there you go. Again, thanks for being on The Rant podcast. I know you've got a lot going on in your world there at Northern Virginia Community College as well as everything else that you do. But let's just let's start. By just talking about Nova many of the folks who tune into the Red podcast know a bit about the higher education marketplace and people generally know community colleges, but as you and I know, each community college is a little different. Each community is different. So tell us about Northern Virginia Community College and who your students are today.

Anne Kress 4:23

Perfect. Yes. So Northern Virginia Community College, as our name helpfully suggests, is located in Northern Virginia. We serve about 76. Thousand students across six campuses, five of them would be considered comprehensive campuses. They offer everything from high school, dual enrollment all the way through post degree industry recognized credentials, one of. The campuses is a standalone medical education campus. So we also, part of that 76,000 students is that we serve about 17,000 students who are still in high school through free high school, dual enrollment. And those are courses that are on a pathway that. Could lead to Nova, could lead anywhere. In fact, I was the commencement speaker at one of our dual enrollment partner high schools a couple years ago, and the student who addressed me or introduced me was going to go on to Princeton from his high school with his first two years completed at Nova through high school dual enrollment. So our students really go anywhere. When you look at those 76,000 students, what you're going to find is that although Northern Virginia is rightly thought about as being an incredibly affluent part of Virginia, I think three of the highest earning counties in the country are in Northern Virginia. The reality is that our students are two to four times more likely to come from the lowest income census tracks. So I often describe it as. Our students are the DoorDash drivers that are taking a meal out to Great Falls. They are the Instacart shoppers who are shopping at the local Wegmans for somebody in Falls Church. So our students are working, in fact, 72% of our students are part-time. They're working usually two or more jobs. To thrive and survive in a very high cost. Part of the state costs about 30% more to live in Northern Virginia than to live in other parts of Virginia. Our students represent the incredible diversity of our region. In fact, we don't have a majority student population. Interestingly, we're also not facing that missing male challenge that a lot of higher education is. So our gender, sort of proportions are fairly equal. So why do students come to Nova? They come really with two goals in mind. One is transfer. So about 60% of our students are transfer students. They're seeking to move on to university and to save 40 to 50% on those first two years. Our majority transfer partner is right down the road. From where I'm sitting today, it's George Mason University. We send about 3,800 students a year to Mason. We transfer about 11,000 students over a year. Or they come for career pathways and increasingly they're coming for healthcare. They're coming for skilled trades. And they're still coming for it careers in data center operations called computing, cybersecurity. And that's about a third of our student population. And then we also deliver industry recognized credentials through a program in Virginia that's called Fast Forward. And what's interesting is if you were to look at our average student age, it'd be right around 22. In those career pathway programs, it's higher. It's usually 25 to 27. If you were to look at our industry recognized credentials, it's 27 and up. So you can really see the students that we serve along that continuum.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 7:48

It's always great for me to hear how s. What a similar story every community college in the nation has. Whether you are in the more affluent communities like yours or in the Peralta Community College District in the Oakland area here on the West Coast it really comes down to the same, generally the same type of learner attending those community colleges. These are first generation learners or working learners who are. Struggling to figure out how to get a foothold in, in, in a higher education journey or trying to fi find their career or trying to afford those first two years. So that's the beauty I think, of community colleges is unlike our four year sister institutions whether you're on the east coast, west coast, or right in the middle of the country, colleges, community colleges serve. Regular, everyday working Americans, regardless of what community they serve. How long have you been at at Nova now?

Anne Kress 8:49

So I am now in my seventh year, which is amazing to me. I was a president for 11 years before that in upstate New York. I've been in community colleges for more than 30 years at this point. I started teaching writing at a community college in Florida. But, part of what has drawn me and keeps me at community colleges, to your point, is. Who we're serving. And even in my role at Nova was such a large institution, I spend a lot of time with students and just to your point a couple weeks ago I was in a meeting with students on one of our campuses, and a student wanted to talk to me afterwards and admitted that he had tried to come to NOVA a couple times before and just for financial reasons, had to stop out. Now he's finished. He's almost finished, but he wanted to tell me his story because he's the first of seven children in his family to graduate from high school. He has some younger brothers and sisters, and they saw him graduate from high school. He is going to encourage them to do he described himself as a trailblazer, that he wants them to follow his pathway into Nova and beyond. And I think those are the students that we're serving every single day. The door of opportunity is incredibly important to them.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 10:03

It's absolutely, incredibly important to them. And that certainly was my story. I wouldn't be here talking to you, but for Golden West College, the opportunity to walk onto the campus, pick up a class schedule, and suddenly find myself enrolled in college after serving four years in the military, working two years after that. So it's it's an incredibly. American Story, our community colleges it's really the only part of our higher education system that is truly American made. Not to steal anybody's thunder these days about America first, but but our community colleges are America first.

Anne Kress 10:40

We're democracies, colleges.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 10:43

And let me ask you about the last few years. A lot has been happening the last several years. I think about. The challenges that we had before the pandemic, they seemed so small compared to the challenges we have today. We got through the pandemic. A lot changed. We've had a lot of political turmoil. We've had a lot of challenges in the economy, huge swings and changes in the workforce. Some hostility toward higher education. I think broadly speaking. Confidence public's the public's confidence in higher education has eroded over the years. The feeling that it's no longer worth the cost of getting into college has certainly been something that, that we've been talking about. And now we have some new accountability standards, which, frankly, I generally support the push for more accountability and more transparency with all those changes. How are you and your team? Adjusting to those changes. And how are you responding to, the demand from students these days who have a lot more agency than they did just five years ago?

Anne Kress 11:51

Yeah. And it, it is a lot, right? I, but I do think sometimes nostalgia is a very powerful drug. And having done this for more than three decades, I can remember all sorts of things happening in higher ed where we thought, oh my gosh. But I do think one of the things we've been focused on at Nova in terms of risk. Bonding is remembering why we're here, right? And we are here to connect the students who come to us to transformational opportunity, right? And so I do think that's one thing we have in community colleges is that incredibly powerful mission. So then the question is, how do we live out that mission? And what are the responsibilities, the accountabilities, the obligations we have to our students when they come to us and they give us their hopes and dreams and ask. And like you, I think that a lot of those accountabilities are valid. That when a student comes to us and we say that this degree is, or this certificate is gonna lead to real economic opportunity that you might not have without it. We need to be able to document that. And so at Nova we've really been keen on thinking through what is that return on investment. We do economic impact studies like many colleges do. So we're able to tell students that you invest a dollar in tuition at Nova, you're gonna get$8 and 70 cents in return. If you enter into one of our short term industry recognized credentials. You'll get about a 60% return on less than four months of your time. For a certificate that thanks to some generous financial aid in the Commonwealth of Virginia, you might pay very little for. So I think that's one of the things we've been doing is really focusing on where are those connections? Where is that relevance? Also really foregrounding quite honestly, the affordability of community colleges and the commonwealth compared to universities. The state council on higher education for Virginia has indicated that you're gonna save over$20,000 if you begin your associate. You complete your associates at a community college before you transfer on. So our tuition is 40 to 50% what you would pay at a. A public university. And as I remind students, when you transfer over, it says UVA, it says William and Mary, it says George Mason on your diploma. It doesn't say, oh, by the way, you went to Nova. So that's, why not get those courses here close to home? So I do think that accountability is critical. And, but the, it, it is a lot all at once, right? Those enormous changes. All at the last moment. And so one group that we've really been trying to pay close attention to at Nova, our staff, I think there are folks who get to react to the changes that are out there. And then there are folks who have to deal with the changes that are out there. And so I think about, our amazing people in financial aid. I think about the folks in the budget office. I think about the folks in the grants office. So one of the things we've really been focused on is how do we get information in a timely manner to the folks who need it on the front lines, because they're really the ones where those changes are hitting them first.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 14:59

No, I think that's a great point. The executive teams of any college or university, has the luxury of thinking about these challenges in a very different way than the staff who are sitting there. Trying to figure out, what, how is this going to affect my job? How am I going to deal with all these changes? What does it mean to me? Because it's it is a lot of change. But I agree with you about nostalgia and people often particularly. Last year I would get text messages, emails all the time. What do you think about the changes of the Department of Ed? What do you think we need to do? And while I think we can debate whether or not the changes that happened were well intentioned, I think at the end of the day. There is nothing in my mind that I feel nostalgic about the old Department of Education. Even though I spent some time there, I have great friends who worked there. I know most of the previous secretaries they all did wonderful jobs with in the constraints that they had. I think lifting those constraints gives us a chance to reimagine what the federal and state partnership should look like. What is the priorities? For higher education, how should we think about institutions like community colleges and hopefully spend less time with the 1% of the wealthiest institutions and spend more time talking about the 99% of the institutions that actually serve the majority of Americans. So I hope that's what comes out of this craziness at the end of the day. And so that's about the only thing that keeps me hopeful right now is just the opportunity to reimagine this.

Anne Kress 16:38

And I think, again, I go back to our students, every single time I meet with students, whether those students are, 17-year-old, high school dual enrollment students, or 37-year-old students in a welding certification program, I am constantly reaffirmed that we're gonna be okay. That there are folks who are so energized, so driven, so I think really connected to the notion that they can change things for the good, whether it's for their families, their neighborhoods the commonwealth. The nation. I think that's one of the things that community colleges really have are students who are just so purposeful and driven in what they're doing in our institutions because they can see that opportunity is essential and they make it

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 17:24

I may have to have a podcast just explaining to all my West Coast friends what a commonwealth is.

Anne Kress 17:30

oh, that's true. Sorry. We're a commonwealth in Virginia. It makes, it's fancier than a state.

What Makes A Credential Valuable

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 17:36

It is. It's much fancier. It's very East Coast. Let me ask you this you mentioned a phrase earlier that is in discussion a lot these days, market. Valued credentials. There is a lot of talk about how to make sense of all these credentials with all the talk about workforce, Pell, all the work states are doing around short-term credentials, apprenticeship models trying to add more value to each program of study. How do you and your team think about market value credentials and. How do you determine if there is value?

Anne Kress 18:16

Yeah, I think that's critical. It's it's an over a trillion dollar business in providing all of these credentials, most of which I've gotta be honest, I think have almost no. Marketplace value. But students are wasting their time and their money on them. So we're actually very lucky in the state of Virginia. There you go. Now everyone in California understands me in the state of Virginia in that for quite some time we've had a program called the Workforce Credentials Grant. Colloquially we call it fast forward and so there are various. Guardrails and criteria around fast forward. In fact those guardrails and criteria that Representative Bobby Scott and Senator Tim Kane, both from Virginia have really worked to put into what was short-term PE now is workforce pe. And so they include the fact that these need to be credentials that are industry recognized, right? It can't be. Ann's autobody shop came up with this certification and now I'm gonna make you pay for it. It needs to be, you need to be able to hire off of it at multiple employers and even more in the region in which it's offered in Virginia. There need to be postings that say that this is something that enables an employer to hire an employee. So it can't be like a nice to have, it should be a need to have. And we actually have to document all of that at the state level so that those industry recognize credentials. Have real value to the folks who get them. And then in addition, we're tracked at the state level around the wage gains associated with earning those industry recognized credentials in our region. So it's not that somebody picked up and moved to California and now is Macon Bank. They need to be able to earn additional wages here in Northern Virginia. And as I said, right now we're standing at about 60% increase in wages. And these are certifications in everything from healthcare to construction, to project management, to ai to various IT fields. So that I think is really critical as we work, look at workforce Pell, that there needs to be an actual return on a student's time investment and the federal government's investment. In that financial aid. The last thing I'll say is that at Nova we've also been very intentional in turning those industry recognized credentials into college credits because we don't want there to be any wrong door for students. So a lot of folks will start in industry recognized credentials, and then there'll be able to get a head start if they wanna move into an associate's degree or a cert, a college level certificate. Because again. Lots of different pathways, lots of different student audiences. We want everyone to be able to reach that opportunity.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 21:03

I love that that saying no. No wrong doors for students. Every door that they walk into there's a path toward their economic mobility. And as you were talking about all these credentials I had a shiver go down my spine and realized that you are actually the second community college president because I had Aita Menon on from

Anne Kress 21:24

Oh

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 21:26

of course, I don't always think about Calb. As a traditional community college. So my apologies, Aita,

Using AI For Student Support

Anne Kress 21:32

Oh no, I'm sure she will. She will forgive you. But a, again, I think you know what Calb is doing, it's one of the thing, 40% of NOVA students will take one or more online classes. I do think, part of, and I know we're gonna get to talk about A-S-U-G-S-V, I do think part of what's happening right now, whether it's public confidence or a push from the administration or at the state level. It's really time, I think, for higher education to do a reset and think about the needs of the millennial post-baccalaureate learners and the gen alphas who are pushing us to be different.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 22:08

Pushing us to be different. Indeed. So let's start moving into the space that we will be in, in San Diego at A-S-U-G-S-V. It's all about ai, generative ai, gentech, ai and you live in a part of the country where, data centers are popping up everywhere. The economy is really being driven more and more by by AI and AI related or directly related companies. So how are you and you, your team, thinking about leveraging the power of AI to better support your students? And what advice would you have for other college presidents who are. Trying to figure out how to deal with this this monster that's coming and tame it into something that really is helpful to students, helpful to staff, and creates more opportunity on the ground.

Anne Kress 23:02

Yeah. It's, I will often say in within Nova, you don't have to ai. You can hate ai. The reality is you are already using ai. So we need to make sure that our students are able to access those skill sets. We've really focused on those industry recognized credentials and short term certificates so that students can buckle those on to any program of study. Because we in talking, we do a lot of conversation with the industry. I have a future of work advisory council. We do a lot with labor market information and we could see in our region that it wasn't so much that folks were looking for AI degrees, they were looking for AI skill sets within whatever field or discipline somebody was coming out. And so that's where we focus there. Now, institutionally, a again, I go back to the fact that we are big, we are 76,000 students. There is simply no way. For us with human person power to do what we need to do to provide the coaching, the support, the advising honestly the tracking to make sure that folks are on their path to graduation without some sort of. Technological intervention. And so I do think as we look to adopt AI and everything from assessing transcripts if you think about how many transcripts students now bring with them to an institution to providing coaching we're in fact about to launch our own sort of native. Created career coach that's feeding off of information at Nova. We do online coaching, success coaching. So I do think the biggest potential right now for us with AI is really in providing that personalized experience that otherwise a student who attends an institution this large is never gonna be able to receive.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 24:51

I could not agree more, and it just makes me smile to hear you talk about data and leveraging AI in that way. As I think about how my experience differs when I'm with, say, the team at WGU or the team at University of Phoenix, or the team at a SU enterprise learning, it's a very different way of viewing the learner and their journey and their experience and the way that they can leverage data to one. Help faculty and staff be able to better understand the needs of each individual student. Two, be able to communicate with them in real time whenever they have a need or a question. And three, create that more personalized experience for the variety of learners that come to us. Some of which some of whom don't always. Fit well in a traditional classroom, traditional pedagogy that we have grown so comfortable delivering. So I couldn't agree with you more. Do you see other community colleges, some of your sister community colleges, other leaders in the system pursuing those angles?

Anne Kress 26:05

Absolutely. You think about a place like Miami-Dade or Dallas. And one of the things we have in common right, is that we're very large and, that's both a blessing and a curse, right? We have these great economies of scale, but it's also realistic that it's easy to, for a student to get lost in our institutions. And so we have to work double time in order to make sure that those students remain connected and that open door of opportunity doesn't lead to the back door of exit. We want those students to walk from that open door across the stage of commencement. With that degree, with that credential ready to go, and I do think a lot of these tools are going to enable us to make that story truer for more and more students.

What ASU GSV Signals Next

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 26:47

I'm jotting down all these sayings so I can write the Ann Crest book of community college sayings. Ann as you walk into the doors of A-S-U-G-S-V, the summit in San Diego, which we're gonna be walking into here shortly, what are you looking to see? What what do you gain from the experience of being there and how do we get more community college leaders interested in learning more from places like A-S-U-G-S-V in terms of how to leverage technology?

Anne Kress 27:21

Yeah. I will say one of the things I'm most interested in this year is really that reframing around that pre-K degree, because I do think that's something that's gonna be pushing all of us when we look at our programs in healthcare. For example, and see the number of students who are coming to us having already earned a bachelor's or a master's, but the economy has changed and that's not what's there for them anymore and they're coming back for something new. When we look at what we're doing with dual enrollment and actually now talking with some districts about pushing some early learnings down to eighth grade that I do think. There's an opportunity when we start to break down the barriers of the walls and the halls and the classrooms and the Carnegie units and all of that, and to really think about building that learning environment that isn't so much about transcripts or catalog. But really is recognizing what the world is right now that, that constant learning. So that's one of the things I'm most excited about. I do think one of the great benefits of going to A-S-U-G-S-V is, to be sure there's a lot of hype and in the immortal words of public enemy, don't believe the hype all the time. But you do get to see where the. Thinking is going right. And I go back to, I think it was Wayne Gretzky, right? You gotta skate to where the puck is gonna go, not to where the puck is right now. I'm sure that's a terrible translation, but you start to see those signals in the noise about what's going to be happening. And I do think one of the great benefits then in a institution of higher education, whether community college or university, is it can take a while to move things. In higher ed. I don't know if anyone's observed that before. So getting those signals early about where students' interests are, right? Getting that survey due. Data around students getting industry perspectives, not just on what they wanna sell you, but who are they hiring. All of that then comes back into an institution and it starts to help you set clear strategic directions because you get a sense of what's gonna be out there.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 29:27

But within all that noise, there is a lot of signal signaling about what's coming. I just think about, two years ago at A-S-U-G-S-V, there was the big reveal about chat GPT and just think about how far we've come in those two years. It's just been amazing.

Anne Kress 29:46

I think back, I think it was maybe two years ago at the Air show now they fully integrated AI into A-S-U-G-S-V, but walking around, talking to the vendors and really getting a sense of not just the products that they wanted to sell, but how they were using those algorithms to drive. Information and understanding how to data sets. And going back to what we talked about a little while ago, that was a real aha moment, right? That this is going to be empowering in different ways if it's used ethically and correctly to support students because these are tools that can mine that data in ways that we have never thought about before to really create personalized pathways for students that go well beyond, just a, I think about the old degree audits that existed when I started where green and bar sheets that students would walk around office to office with. Like we are light years from that right now, and it's because of the technologies that come to the surface at A-S-U-G-S-V.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 30:52

Agreed. So with all the changes that are happening and the different things that you're learning, how to better leverage data, better leverage technology to create that more personal experience. Has that changed the way you think about how you're organized at Nova,

Reorganizing Around Data And Schedules

Anne Kress 31:10

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. One of the things we're very lar we got six campuses. Historically, Nova has been very decentralized. Very decentralized. There are historical stories at the college, in fact that even though we have a single accreditation, there were campuses that wouldn't take credits from other campuses. Even though we were at the same institution, so one of the things we're looking at is what is the power of data, for example, around scheduling. If we start to bring that together, recognizing that there was a time when students might be exclusively attending our Annandale campus or Alexandria campus, but those days are gone. You throw in online, you throw in remote Zoom classes. That a student is more likely to be taking classes from multiple campuses. So we gotta pull some of that together. We gotta look at that data, we've gotta do some analysis. We gotta use these tools. Why? Because it benefits the student. The students looking for the best possible schedule to fit in between work, childcare, traveling, everything else they're doing. And traveling, meaning not going on vacation, but trying to get from one end of Northern Virginia to the other in less than two hours. So we can use the tools in the data to do that. So it is definitely changing the way we think about what we do.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 32:29

Yeah, no, that, that sounds great. We talk about centering the learner all the time in redesigning or reimagining our post-secondary systems, and I think those are great examples of how you have to pull back and recenter the learner now that you have the ability to. Create a more personal experience and now that learners have much more agency, they are looking

Anne Kress 32:52

yeah.

Leadership Advice For Chaotic Times

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 32:53

for the opportunity to have those hybrid schedules to attend a class when they need it, and to look at different places where they can get the same class. Hopefully that continues to drive the behavior. Let me ask you one last question as we begin to close. You've been in the community colleges for a little bit of time 30 plus years. That's a little bit of time. So you've seen a lot of change. You talk to a lot of leaders in the system, both at the community college level, the four year regional. What's your advice to new leaders these days? I hear a lot from them. Just wondering. How they're going to manage through all the, what they see as chaos today. What would be your advice to them?

Anne Kress 33:42

Again, it's having that level of experience is a good thing, right? Because it, it teaches you that you don't need to react right away to anything that happens. You can pause, you can breathe, you can think it through. There are very few emergencies that happen. In the work that we do. I once had a mentor who told me we don't do open heart surgery at the college. So you can take some time to make some decisions. You can include others in that conversation, right? It's not always just about you as a leader. You may be the smartest person in the room, but that's rarely true. There are lots of smart people in the room and you should. Talk with them

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 34:21

That's never been true

Anne Kress 34:21

perspectives. So I would stress that, that I do think sometimes because it seems that. The old school ways of setting priorities just aren't there anymore. Everything seems like it's some sort of burning fire that you need to put out, and most of them aren't. If you leave them alone, they'd go out on their own. So I do think that's part of being a leader right now is knowing when to just sit back and just, okay, let me think this through. Let me breathe. The other thing, and I, this is a very practical thing I share with leaders is you earn leave and you should take it. I talked to a colleague recently who told me he hadn't taken a vacation in seven years, and I said, you need to take a vacation. You need to go. And he said, where's the last place you went? And I actually told him our kids are adults now and they wanted to go back to Disney World'cause there's this thing about drinking around the world they wanted to do, and it's all over the internet. I don't drink. So I had my Diet Coke and

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 35:19

I think there was a senator who recently visited there,

Anne Kress 35:22

Yeah, I know. But I'll tell you, this person wound up going to Disney World. So I do think part of this is recognizing that you're human too, and you need to spend some time taking care of yourself.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 35:37

I think that's great advice. And I think the example you mentioned, sometimes as leaders you get into the thinking that you know, only you can solve the problem. You have to stay there. You can't take a vacation and that's probably the opposite of the way you need to think about it. You build a team for the purpose of solving any of a number of problems, and you're just there to. To support that team as the leader. So I think that's great advice and I really appreciate you taking the time to, to be on the podcast. And most importantly, I appreciate your leadership in the system. You've done a tremendous job everywhere you've been. Nova was a great example of a great community college, so thank you for your leadership and thank you for being on the podcast.

Anne Kress 36:21

Oh no. Thank you so much and thank you for your leadership.

eloy-ortiz-oakley_1_04-03-2026_090007 36:25

All right. Folks, you've been listening to my conversation with Dr. Anne Kress. She's the president of Northern Virginia Community College, doing great work there at Northern Virginia, and a great example for community college leaders throughout the country. So thanks for joining us, everybody. If you're watching us on YouTube, please hit subscribe. Continue to follow us, and if you're listening to us on your favorite. Audio podcast platform, subscribe and download this episode. Thanks for joining us, everybody, and we will see you all soon.