Jessica Morrison

Background

About Jessica Morrison

I am fortunate to lead an innovative, grassroots nonprofit organization called the Southwest Colorado Education Collaborative. As the founding Executive Director we have built shared career and college pathways across the Southwest region of Colorado through community-driven facilitation and implementation. We design with our communities which provides shared investment, partnership, and collaboration. Our successes are demonstrated through bringing over 6 million dollars in funding to our rural communities, connecting industry leaders directly to students for real-world connections, and convening three sectors (K-12, Higher Education, and Industry) to build robust pathways that blur the lines for students to enter the future workforce. Listed as an innovative approach to learn from in Colorado, we are proud to be leading this innovative work that provides the ability to refine education systems that are no longer serving students and our workforce. As someone who has engaged in the education sector for over 20 years, I am excited and energized when I can vision, plan, and build new approaches for all students and educators to utilize in the career and college space. During my time as the Director of Career and College Counseling at Animas High School, I built a successful career and college program that was listed as a state model in Colorado for ICAP and career and college readiness. Trained in project-based learning and design thinking, the program I designed allowed for students and families to be the drivers of their process for life after high school. Through my variety of work experiences in higher education, nonprofits, international teaching, and the federal government I have gained many transferable skills that I rely on to build and execute on a vision that becomes a successful reality. Some of these skills include curriculum development, visioning and strategic planning, coaching and mentorship of students and families, systems building and improvement, public speaking, facilitation, public policy and advocacy, grant writing, development cultivation, and event planning. Steeped in the focus of equitable education and a love for rural regions in the United States, I feel fortunate to have been able to dedicate my life to supporting innovative approaches toward building stronger communities and systems through education. Collaboration and facilitating of individuals with diverse perspectives and viewpoints is a passion of mine and is grounded in my own life experiences of where and how I grew up.