Mark Curtis-Chavez

2020-21 Aspen Rising Presidents Fellow
Mark serves as the provost of the College of DuPage in Illinois, overseeing both academic and student affairs as the chief academic officer and chief student affairs officer. College enrollment at COD is 26,000, with 304 full-time faculty. He also serves as chief executive officer in the absence of the college president. Mark serves on the American Association of Community Colleges’ Commission on Student Success and the National Community College Hispanic Council board, as well as other organizations, such as the Education Commission of the City of Aurora, Illinois.

Mark is the first person in his family to attend college. He has taught English as an adjunct as well as a full-time professor. He has served in a variety of administrative roles at Arizona Western College, Cuyahoga Community College, Lone Star College, and College of DuPage—from division chair to dean to district office. He has overseen the development of competency-based education programs in information technology and business and a variety of new AS, AA, and AAS degrees and certificates, such as converged technology and law enforcement. He has also been responsible for increasing enrollment at each of the institutions he has served as an administrator, leading strategic enrollment management teams at COD and LSC-CyFair. Recently, he institutionalized student success goals at COD to increase Black and Latino student success and created a needs-based scholarship for students with financial struggles.

Mark has a doctor of philosophy in higher education from the University of Toledo, a master of arts in English from Northern Illinois University, and a bachelor of arts in English from Indiana University.