What is The Center for Higher Education?
The Center for Higher Education Leadership provides academic leadership with information and a supportive community for improving management and leadership skills in the environment of changing demographics, financial challenges and advances in educational technology.
Why do you exist?
Higher Education is in crisis: rising tuition and student debt, declining enrollments, diversity and immigration issues and much more are unprecedented challenges facing colleges and universities today. Informed and supported leadership is key.
The Center for Higher Education Leadership (CHEL) solves this problem by providing a solution that provides academic leaders in higher education with information and a supportive community for improving management and leadership skills, in an environment of changing demographics, financial challenges and advances in educational technology.
Who started the center?
Terri Givens is the former Provost at Menlo College in the San Francisco Bay Area; Professor of Government and European studies at The University of Texas at Austin; Vice Provost overseeing undergraduate curriculum and spearheading global initiatives as its chief international officer.
Shelley Seale is an award-winning journalist and editor based in Austin, Texas. A graduate of St. Edward's University with dual degrees in Journalism and Cultural Psychology, Shelley has written for National Geographic, USA Today, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Business Journals, Texas School Business, and numerous university publications.
When did the company begin operations?
CHEL was founded by Terri Givens and Shelley Seale in February 2019, though its planning took place for many months before that. After Terri Givens left her last job as provost at Menlo College, she knew from her personal experience with the extreme lack of support and professional development for higher ed leaders, that her next move was to create a center as a solution to this important problem.
Are you already in operations? Do you have customers?
Yes! We have had an overwhelming response to our much-needed center for professional development for administrators at colleges and universities, to help them deal with the incredible challenges facing higher education today. We currently have institutional members including the University of California, Emory University, Richmond University, the Art Institute of San Francisco, and others; as well as more than 100 individual members.
We are just wrapping up our first Higher Ed Administration 101 online course, which has more than 80 participants from all around the globe. We've just released our 12th edition of our twice-monthly newsletter, Higher Ed Connects.
We already have revenue and a proven business model. We just need your help to take it to the next level, scale the business, and have enough staff and marketing support to reach even more higher education leaders — and therefore the students they serve!
Why are you running a crowdfunding campaign, and what will you do with the money?
To fulfill our lofty mission, we need money to hire and pay marketing and support staff to increase subscriptions and reach sponsors.
Why crowdfunding?
"According to data from PitchBook, female founders received 2.2% of $130 billion in VC funding in 2018. The number of deals completed by female founders is growing, though the percentage of money going to these companies remains stagnant as the total amount of VC investment increases."
"Businesses with women of color CEOs get less than 1 percent of all VC funding every year. Of all VC funding over the past decade, Latinx women-led startups have raised only 0.32 percent while black women have raised only .0006 percent." -GirlBoss
Why ifundwomen?
ifundwomen.com is a crowdfunding platform that specifically supports women-founded start-ups. CHEL co-founders Terri Givens and Shelley Seale felt it was the perfect platform for us to raise our seed money on!
Do you have other questions?
Please check out our website, HigherEdLeads.com, and our Member Portal, HigherEdConnects.com. You can also contact us via email at [email protected].
