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The Chronicle List: This Year's Newsmakers - Special Reports

The people who shaped higher education this year made their mark through the courts; through the power of an idea; through the act of writing an open letter; even in death. Here are 10 individuals who have had a lasting impact. STAT EHO USE PER SUAD ER Dominique Raymond Haroon Ahmad As an executive at a 10- person nonprofit association, Dominique Raymond has a powerful hand in shaping state policy on higher education. The group she leads, Complete College America's Alliance of States, is influencing decisions from Oregon to Florida on such hot- button issues as remedial education and performancebased funding. Thanks to her, more states tie college funding to college performance Largely as a result of its work, 16 states have recently passed laws linking a portion or all of colleges' appropriations to performance measures like graduation rates and students' progress through remedial courses. At least nine other states are seriously considering moves in that direction after prodding from the nonprofit, which receives much of its financial backing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a vice president at Complete College America, where she has been since 2010, Ms. Raymond advises teams from 33 states and the District of Columbia that have agreed to set college- completion goals, take policy action, and collect data to promote the group's agenda. She sees her job as connecting people to effective practices. Ms. Raymond is helping Baltimore City Community College, for instance, adopt a program started at the City University of New York that enrolls students in cohorts by major, full time, with structured schedules and small classes. Its graduation rate is more than three times the national average for urban community colleges. While critics have accused Complete College America of being overly prescriptive, she sees nothing wrong with that: " If something works, why wouldn't you want to replicate it?" Ms. Raymond, 48, grew up on Chicago's South Side, where her parents moved from Haiti in the 1960s. Her mother, a nurse, and her father, a TV repairman, taught her that education was " a great equaliz er," she says. Critics have cautioned that some of her organiz ation's strategies could hurt poor and minority students. But she counters that they stand to gain the most from the nonprofit's advocacy. " If you can provide the structure and framework for people to access education," says Ms. Raymond, " you'll improve their lives." She takes a highly structured approach to her work: Her meetings on college completion are carefully choreographed, with a mix of politicos, presidents, and provosts. And she makes sure that everyone leaves with aggressive plans to put into effect the nonprofit's " game- changing strategies," such as integrating remediation into gateway courses, providing incentives for students to enroll full time, and introducing structured schedules and degree plans. " What I love about these game changers are the double- digit gains that show they're working," says Ms. Raymond. Clear, convincing data are crucial, she says, to persuade policy makers. " Dominique has a deep understanding of state politics, as well as K- 12 and higher- education agendas," says Donna Linderman, CUNY's university associate dean for student- success initiatives. " She understands how they all have to fit together to move the action forward." Katherine Mangan