LEAP 2024 Conference took place on Wednesday, November 20th at DMACC. This year's conference featured a keynote address from Jordan Brooks from Iowa State University who challenged students to manifest their dreams and how knowing themselves can help them find a college and career that combines their passions and interests.

LEAP was back for 2023 and, oh my, was it missed!  After a 3-year hiatus due to Covid and a shortage of bus drivers, it was great to welcome students once again. LEAP is held on a different campus each year and we were grateful to be hosted by Mount Mercy University in Cedar Rapids.   Our hope is that students get to know what it is like at each campus and learn about what each institution has to offer.

Over the last three years, the Iowa Department of Education has worked to expand access to professionals who understand the college admissions process for underrepresented students in high schools across Iowa. In the spring of 2021, the department opened up it’s first grant opportunity to allow community colleges and high schools to partner to add College/Career Transition Counselors (CCTC).  Now, 2 ½ years later, there are nearly 50 CCTCs across the state with nearly every community college employing at least one school counselor. By the end of this school year, there are plans to have a CCTC at every community college serving at least one high school. As the network expands, it is important to understand the role of this new person at Iowa high schools and how college admission counselors can partner to increase student enrollment in college.

I want to introduce you to Janine Baeza and myself, Juanita Zavala, Co-Chairs for the Inclusion, Access, and Success committee. Janine is the Associate Director of Freshman Recruitment & Access at the University of Northern Iowa and I am a College and Career Transition Coach (CCTC) at Indian Hills Community College. Our committee works to identify how to better serve and support underrepresented high school students with their post-secondary plans.

Do you know how it feels to go to another country and not know anybody? Or not know what to do? As the Coordinator of International and Multicultural Connections, I get to meet with a lot of students from different nationalities, backgrounds and cultures. When you work in higher education, you need to make sure to understand your role as an advisor; you want to make students feel like they can achieve the impossible and every goal is doable. Even when you have all the years under your wing and know all the tricks regarding advising students, sometimes that isn’t enough to connect with students.

Latinos Unidos of Iowa is a non-profit organization led and founded by Lena Robinson. Last year, I served on the Board of Directors as their Scholarship Liaison and wanted to take some time to highlight the incredible work that LU does every day. One of the primary missions of this organization is to meet and connect with Latinx students and individuals throughout Iowa, providing resources for students as well as offering scholarships to students pursuing associate, undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate programs in Iowa.

The Iowa ACAC Inclusion, Access, and Success committee chaired by Juana Hollingsworth and Jesus Lizarraga-Estrada recently hosted another successful L.E.A.P Conference (Leading, Excelling, Academically and Professionally). The leadership conference is for underrepresented high school students in the state of Iowa. The conference this year was hosted at the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) Ankeny Campus on Wednesday, April 24, 2019. Last year's conference was hosted in Cedar Rapids at Mount Mercy University.

Some of our member colleges and universities are hosting student visit days just for international students.

This year I had the opportunity to attend the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity (NORE) in New Orleans. This was my first time attending the conference and I did not know what to expect.

Over 40 students attended L.E.A.P. 2018 at the Mount Mercy University Graduate Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. This annual leadership conference for underrepresented and first-generation freshmen, sophomores, and juniors in Iowa, is organized by the Iowa ACAC Inclusion, Access, and Success Committee. This year’s participants included students from Iowa City, Postville, Muscatine, West Liberty, and Columbus Junction.