Meghan Hughes, Ph.D. '23

President
Community College of Rhode Island

Award Profile

Courageous Thinking and Action
With 30 years of experience in higher education and the nonprofit sector, Dr. Meghan Hughes has dedicated her life to serving people. As president of CCRI, Dr. Hughes leads ongoing transformation at the community college with an unwavering focus on student success. She has committed herself to providing Rhode Islanders with an outstanding education that leads to strong learning outcomes, successful degree attainment, and robust labor market outcomes. Dr. Hughes has placed closing equity performance gaps at the center of her work. Under her leadership, the college achieved the highest graduation rates in more than 20 years, outpacing national two-and three-year graduation rates, and was named the 2019 two-year college of the year by Education Dive magazine.

Dr. Hughes fiercely advocated for the creation of a free college tuition program at CCRI, which has become a model for similar programs across the country. In just three years, the RI Promise Scholarship program resulted in a 15% increase in the overall college-going rate in Rhode Island, a 146% increase in enrollment of students of color, and a 71% increase in enrollment of low-income students.

Vision & Innovation
Beyond providing Rhode Islanders affordable, high quality education, and workforce opportunities, Dr. Hughes has made it a priority for the college to understand and provide necessary resources for students to be successful - including food, housing, transportation, and other essential parts of daily life. CCRI is launching two significant initiatives to assist students: the CCRI Benefits Hub and CCRI Community First.

The Benefits Hub will be a one-stop-shop for financial coaching and direct connections to the available federal, state, and community resources, including utility assistance, emergency funding, enrollment in public benefits such as SNAP benefits, and assistance with homeless prevention and housing navigation. The Hub will bring together everything the remarkable student services team does every day with community partners to complete the picture.

To ensure all Rhode Island residents have access to post-secondary education, CCRI is meeting prospective students where they are by taking CCRI to the most marginalized cities and neighborhoods in Rhode Island through Community First. The initiative has a particular focus on adult learners on the west and south sides of Providence, where there are higher levels of unemployment, lower levels of educational attainment, and a higher concentration of minority residents compared to the rest of the state. Community First will create equitable pathways to certificates, degrees, and good jobs for underserved Rhode Islanders so they can achieve economic mobility.

Inspiring Leadership
Led by Dr. Hughes, CCRI has expanded beyond the realms of only an associate degree option into workforce opportunities that focus on unemployed and underemployed Rhode Islanders. CCRI’s partnerships with government and industry have transformed the labor market landscape through collaborative building of in-demand credentials that allow Rhode Islanders to receive the training needed to compete in today’s economy and provide a pipeline of qualified employees for businesses.

CCRI is the leading educational partner for General Dynamics Electric Boat for its submarine building facilities in New London, CT and Quonset, RI with more than 3,000 employees trained and an expected total of 1,200 for the 2023 calendar year. Other Rhode Islanders trained through recently launched workforce pathways include 1,300 for business and technology, close to 600 in healthcare professions, 650 in adult education, and close to 70 in advanced CNC manufacturing. More recently, CCRI launched the state’s first GWO training program in support of multiple offshore wind farms expected to be constructed in the coming years.

Community Mindedness
Committed to supporting the Rhode Island community, Dr. Hughes chairs the Board of Directors for the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and serves on the Board of Directors of the Rhode Island Foundation and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. In addition, she serves as a member on the Council on Competitiveness, the College Board’s Community College Advisory Panel, United States Congressman David Cicilline’s Women’s Advisory Council, and the Rhode Island Commodores.

Dr. Hughes is an Aspen Institute Fellow for Community College Excellence. She was presented with the “Trailblazer in Education” award in 2018 at the Realizing Inspiration & Sustaining Excellence Women’s Leadership Conference. Dr. Hughes was recognized by the Latino Public Radio Foundation with its Foundation Builder Award in 2016 and by the Rhode Island Foundation with its Community Leader award in 2015. In 2014, U.S. Rep. David Cicilline named Dr. Hughes an Outstanding Woman of the Year.

JA Mission Moment
“My JA moment happened when a terrific group of Providence high school sophomores visited CCRI for JA’s Job Shadow program. The students toured our Warwick Campus and were able to explore what careers in chemical technology and nursing can look like. We know that when our young people can see a career in action and have the opportunity to ask questions and learn, they can more easily imagine how to achieve that career. I was able to join them for lunch to learn about their internships and career plans and answer their questions about my own job as president. I strongly support JA’s focus on providing access to internships, mentoring, and professional networks. These resources are precisely what we all needed when beginning and developing our own careers, and I applaud JA’s commitment to serving young Rhode Islanders across our many communities.”