Krystal Andrews is a higher education practitioner and has 6 years of professional experience in student success and retention programs at both Predominately White Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities that fuel her passion for helping students envision their own success. In her experience, she has supported minoritized student populations through coordinating a college specific retention program that focused on providing holistic student support to students through intrusive advising, peer mentoring, career planning, and exposure to campus resources. She has experience developing and implementing college-level retention plans, recruitment plans, and programming targeted towards student engagement and academic recovery for at-risk populations. Currently, she is a full-time doctoral student in Education Policy, Organization and Leadership with a concentration in Higher Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a research associate in the Office of Community Research and Leadership working on grant projects that focus on embedding equity into guided pathways and instituting racial justice on community college campuses. Her research interests include: The Black female college student experience and women of color in executive leadership positions at HBCUs and community colleges.
