Keynote Speaker
Dr. Ashanti Hands
2026
Dr. Ashanti Hands is the President of San Diego Mesa College, one of California’s largest community colleges, serving more than 30,000 students annually. Throughout a career spanning more than three decades in higher education and community college leadership, she has remained committed to a simple but powerful question: What conditions must exist for students to thrive?
A champion of evidence-informed and people-centered leadership, Dr. Hands has helped advance a culture of inquiry that connects data to action, equity to accountability, and research to meaningful institutional change. Her work strengthens equity-minded decision-making, elevates student voice, improves student outcomes, and ensures institutional practices reflect the needs, strengths, and aspirations of the communities colleges serve.
Under Dr. Hands’ leadership, Mesa College has expanded access and opportunity through innovative pathways, student-centered practices, and a commitment to fostering belonging, including Health Information Management and Physical Therapist Assistant bachelor’s degree programs. Mesa has also earned recognition as a Black-Serving Institution and Parent-Friendly College and holds longstanding designations as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI), and a Veteran-Friendly campus.
Dr. Hands has served as a Strategic Advisor to The RP Group, is a lecturer in San Diego State University’s doctoral program in Community College Leadership, and is a founding board member of Nandi, a statewide organization dedicated to supporting and advancing African American women in California community colleges.
Dr. Hands believes that inquiry is not simply about measuring outcomes, but about seeing people, understanding experiences, and creating the conditions where success, belonging, purpose, and joy can flourish. Her leadership is grounded in the belief that joy is not the absence of challenge, but the presence of purpose, belonging, and possibility.
A champion of evidence-informed and people-centered leadership, Dr. Hands has helped advance a culture of inquiry that connects data to action, equity to accountability, and research to meaningful institutional change. Her work strengthens equity-minded decision-making, elevates student voice, improves student outcomes, and ensures institutional practices reflect the needs, strengths, and aspirations of the communities colleges serve.
Under Dr. Hands’ leadership, Mesa College has expanded access and opportunity through innovative pathways, student-centered practices, and a commitment to fostering belonging, including Health Information Management and Physical Therapist Assistant bachelor’s degree programs. Mesa has also earned recognition as a Black-Serving Institution and Parent-Friendly College and holds longstanding designations as a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI), and a Veteran-Friendly campus.
Dr. Hands has served as a Strategic Advisor to The RP Group, is a lecturer in San Diego State University’s doctoral program in Community College Leadership, and is a founding board member of Nandi, a statewide organization dedicated to supporting and advancing African American women in California community colleges.
Dr. Hands believes that inquiry is not simply about measuring outcomes, but about seeing people, understanding experiences, and creating the conditions where success, belonging, purpose, and joy can flourish. Her leadership is grounded in the belief that joy is not the absence of challenge, but the presence of purpose, belonging, and possibility.
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