Oakton Selects Brennan Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs and College Transitions
(April 6, 2018) The Oakton Community College Board of Trustees has approved the appointment of Anne O. Brennan, executive director for the Office of Transfer and Articulation for City Colleges of Chicago, as assistant vice president for academic affairs/college transitions, effective Monday, April 30.
“We are very excited to have Anne Brennan join us at Oakton,” says Ileo N. Lott, vice president for academic affairs. “She’s very well-known and highly regarded throughout the state. She’s done a lot of work in college partnerships and articulation, and I know she’ll be able to help us advance the work we are already doing in this regard.”
Brennan will be responsible for developing the college’s transition strategy in collaboration with division deans and faculty, as well as appropriate Student Affairs partners. She will administer Oakton’s dual credit initiatives, ensuring alignment with pathways, certificates and degree programs and strengthening relationships with district high schools, faculty and staff in order to increase and support dual credit curricula.
“I am honored to join the Oakton community and hope to contribute to their success-driven mission,” Brennan says. “I will draw on many fruitful relationships I have developed that connect and align the community college curriculum and students with universities.”
Among her top priorities will be to work with stakeholders to develop and support a sustainable institutional program that provides students credit for prior learning and to cultivate effective working relationships and communications with college and university articulation and transfer representatives to create new articulation agreements and transfer plans.
“I am excited to learn more about Oakton's dual credit programs to discover how I can help clarify academic pathways that assist students gain access to all that college has to offer,” Brennan adds.
These initiatives are all within Brennan’s realm of expertise and experience. She established the Office of Transfer and Articulation for City Colleges of Chicago in 2012, overseeing a team that includes Transfer Center directors at each of the seven City Colleges as well as two district directors who manage transfer programs, services and systems. The Office of Transfer and Articulation is responsible for policies and processes regarding course and program articulations, facilitating smooth transfer both into and out of City Colleges. She served as the co-chair of the Transfer Coordinators of the state of Illinois and was appointed to the My Credits Transfer Advisory Board as well as the Illinois Articulation Initiative Steering Committee for the state of Illinois.
Brennan started at City Colleges in 2011 in the Center for Operational Excellence, leading implementations of student support service changes across the city and partnership activities between Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges. Prior to City Colleges, she established the Office of Community College Partnerships at DePaul University. She has also held various enrollment management, advising and student affairs leadership positions at DePaul, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Saint Xavier University. Brennan directed admission, transfer, and articulation at the University of Southern California, and she also spent several years as Director of Guidance at Saint Francis College-prep HS in California.
Brennan was chosen from among 85 applicants after the search committee conducted six on-campus interviews and selected three finalists to bring to campus for interviews with a number of employee groups, including Council of Deans; an open session for college administrators, faculty, and staff; and the vice president for academic affairs.
She completed her undergraduate degree in education at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and her master’s degree in multicultural and organizational communication at DePaul University. She has done additional graduate-level study in theatre, education and the liberal arts. She began her college studies at Richard J. Daley College.
