Welcoming New Leadership to the Arizona College Access Network
Education Forward Arizona is excited to announce the additions of Dr. Jennifer Murphy as Senior Director of Attainment and AzCAN, and Teena Olszewski, as Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff, to our team!
Jennifer will be focused on growing the Arizona College Access Network (AzCAN) membership and advocacy for access, success, and attainment, as well as reimagining our professional development and building support fields for college access professionals in Arizona.
She joins the team with over 20 years of experience supporting students, families, and educators in K-12, community college, and university settings in Arizona. She is joining Education Forward Arizona from Arizona State University where she most recently served as Executive Director with Educational Outreach, where she wrote and managed several grant projects including a $7 million GEAR UP partnership grant through the USDOE and a $10 million ESSER grant through AZDOE. Additionally, Jennifer oversaw all aspects of social-emotional learning and professional development.
Prior to transitioning to ASU, Jennifer worked as a Department Chair in Counseling at Mesa High School (2003-2008), Dobson High School (2008-2010), and, most recently, at Williams Field High School (2010-2016). Jennifer has also been a Faculty Associate with ASU since 2015 where she teaches Mindset Connections, and a Counseling Adjunct Faculty with Mesa Community College since 2021 teaching Introduction to Counseling.
Jennifer has served as a presenter and keynote speaker at both a local and national level and serves as a local and national school counseling consultant, providing professional development to educators related to relationship-building, cultivating relevance, and eliciting behavior change through the implementation of Motivational Interviewing practices.
Education Forward Arizona is also excited to welcome, Teena Olszewski, a widely recognized state and national education leader, to the organization. In her most recent full-time role, she served as the Executive Director of Arizona GEAR UP at NAU from 2002 to 2020 and led four multi-year GEAR UP grants to fruition during her 18-year tenure.
Since Teena’s retirement from NAU and Arizona GEAR UP in 2020, she has consulted with the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships (NCCEP) to increase capacity to expand benefits and services to association members (federal grantees).
Nationally, Olszewski was a founding leader, and served as Executive Committee co-chair, of NCCEP’s College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium, was a member of the GEAR UP Advisory Commission, and was recognized in 2014 as Professional of the Year.
Teena will lead the internal functions of Education Forward Arizona, including HR, Finance, and Administration, and as Chief of Staff will assist with our organization’s initiatives, like AzCAN, state-wide.
Please join us in welcoming both Jennifer and Teena to AzCAN and Education Forward Arizona!
About AzCAN
The Arizona College Access Network (AzCAN), an initiative of Education Forward Arizona, is a community of college access professionals committed to closing the education attainment gap in Arizona and increasing the percentage of high school graduates enrolled in postsecondary education the semester after graduating high school to 70% by 2030.
AzCAN includes more than 350 organizational members across the state in every county, including nonprofits, high school staff, college outreach programs, funders, government agencies, and business leaders all of whom are committed to closing the education attainment gap in our state.