Dr. Deborah L. Harrington

Deborah L. Harrington is the Dean of Student Success for the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) and the Executive Director for the California Community Colleges’ Success Network (3CSN). Dr. Harrington’s office oversees the implementation of the LA College Promise across the nine colleges and provides resources, leadership, and support for other significant district-wide student completion efforts such as Guided Pathways. 3CSN’s communities of practice are nationally recognized as research-driven initiatives resulting in significant increases in student achievement.

With extensive experience teaching and administering during the past three and a half decades, Dr. Harrington has additionally served as Writing Center Director, Dean for Institutional Effectiveness, and Vice President of Academic Affairs. Dr. Harrington has led national and state efforts to improve student access, success, and equity and to provide effective professional learning resources to faculty through her service as project coordinator and educational consultant in many nationally-recognized programs including California’s Puente Project, Carnegie/Annenberg/Ford Foundations’ Teachers for a New Era Project, and USC and Irvine Foundation’s Diversity/Equity Scorecard Project. Additionally, she has served as Principal Investigator on several national, state, and foundation grants, including ones funded through the Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, and California Futures Foundation. She continues to teach English online at Los Angeles Valley College.

Dr. Harrington is a first generation college-goer and holds a Doctorate in Education from the University of California, Los Angeles; a Master’s Degree in English from California State University, Northridge; a BA in English from UCLA; and an AA in Humanities from College of the Canyons.