The People's Universities
Fulfilling the Promise of American Higher Education
Cecilia Orphan helps Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions restore public trust, advance their missions, and demonstrate their value to the people and places that rely on them most.
Research Cited By:
The Challenge Facing
Regional Public Universities & Rural Serving Institutions
Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions are navigating declining public trust, financial pressures, enrollment challenges, and a growing disconnect between the value they provide and how they are perceived.
Without a clear understanding of how Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions can advance their mission despite these challenges:
Faculty and staff struggle to connect their work to a larger purpose
Strategic planning efforts lose alignment and momentum
Institutions miss opportunities for funding, visibility, partnerships, and public support
Cecilia helps colleges align their mission with their operations and communicate their value in ways that strengthen mission, foster public trust, and improve campus culture.
Cecilia Orphan is one of the leading voices advancing the national conversation around The People's Universities: Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions.
Her work focuses on helping institutions amplify and articulate their unique contributions to access, student success, workforce development, upward mobility, and democracy.
Through keynote speaking, strategic planning facilitation, writing, and consulting, Cecilia helps leaders and faculty envision their work as being connected to higher education’s promise to change lives and improve society.
Cecilia’s TED Talk has become a catalyst for leaders seeking to better understand and articulate the value of Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions.
Signature Keynote
How Regional Public Universities Fulfill the Promise of American Higher Education.
Regional public universities are often overlooked in national conversations about higher education — despite educating millions of students, driving regional economies, preparing educators and healthcare professionals, and changing the lives of the people and places they serve.
In this keynote, Cecilia reframes Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions not as secondary versions of flagship universities, but as a powerful movement to realize the promise of American higher education to foster access, democracy, and public trust.
Drawing from stories of her own journey as a first-generation college student, her nationally recognized research, TED Talk, and work with institutional leaders across the country, Cecilia helps audiences connect their institution’s history, mission, and future to the promise of American higher education.
This keynote is designed for:
- Faculty and staff development
- Strategic planning initiatives
- Leadership retreats
- Higher education conferences
- Policy and advocacy gatherings
- Marketing and public relations efforts
Audience Outcomes:
Participants will:
- Understand the distinct mission and value proposition of Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions
- Learn how institutional identity shapes culture, morale, leadership, and strategic planning
- Gain language and frameworks for advocating for their campus internally and externally
- Discover how mission clarity strengthens reputation, enrollment, partnerships, and public trust
- Reconnect their individual work to the promise of American higher education
Past Audiences Include
Additional Speaking & Consulting Topics
01.
Demonstrating the Value of The Peoples Universities
How Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions provide one of the clearest and most compelling answers to growing skepticism around higher education.
02.
Faculty & Staff Development
03.
Strategic Planning Through Mission Alignment
Supporting campus leaders in aligning strategic priorities with institutional mission, public value, and community impact.
04.
Rural Serving Institutions & Rural Resilience
Research-backed insights into how Rural Serving Institutions strengthen rural workforce development, healthcare access, educational attainment, and rural resilience.
05.
Policy, Public Perception & Institutional Advocacy
Helping institutions and policymakers better understand how Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions fulfill higher education’s promise to America.
About Cecilia Orphan
Cecilia is widely recognized for her groundbreaking research on Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions.
Her work has helped shape national conversations around institutional visibility, funding, access, and public value.
Cecilia is an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of Denver and Founding Co-Director of the Alliance for Research on Regional Colleges (ARRC).
She holds a BA in Political Science from Portland State University, a Regional Public University, and a PhD in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania.
She served on the Technical Review Panel for the Carnegie Classifications’ Student Access and Earnings Classifications and helped develop nationally recognized lists identifying Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions across the United States. Her research is used by funders, policymakers, researchers, and institutional leaders.
From 2006-2011, she directed the American Democracy Project for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) where she supported hundreds of Regional Public Universities in advancing their civic commitments. In 2023, she co-authored Stewardship of Place which frames the mission of AASCU institutions.
(also Ireland, Hungary, and Canada)
Why This Work Matters
Cecilia Orphan’s work is deeply personal.
She is a first-generation, working-class college graduate who experienced homelessness as a child. Her life was transformed by the very types of institutions she now studies, advocates for, and speaks about nationally. As a student, she attended Linn-Benton Community College, a Rural Serving Institution, and Portland State University, a Regional Public University – colleges designed to expand access and create opportunity for students too often overlooked by traditional definitions of prestige.
Because she lived that experience firsthand, Cecilia understands the value and transformative power of Regional Public universities and Rural Serving Institutions. Not just academically, but economically, civically, and personally. Because she attended these institutions, her children had college savings accounts before they could walk and will have radically different childhoods than her own.
She knows these institutions are often the difference between opportunity and limitation for people balancing work, family responsibilities, financial barriers, and uncertainty about whether college is for them.
Her lived experience shapes every keynote, workshop, and consulting engagement she leads.
Cecilia doesn’t simply research these institutions from a distance. She has devoted her career to helping others recognize what she experienced herself: Regional Public Universities and Rural Serving Institutions are not the “fallback institutions” in higher education. As the People’s Universities, they are some of the most transformative institutions in the country.
Her work invites institutions to move beyond the temptation to chase prestige and instead embrace the power and possibility of committing to higher education’s promise to America.
Cecilia firmly believes that when institutions understand the value of who they are, they are better equipped to protect their mission, strengthen their reputation, and transform the people and places they serve.
Recognition & Leadership
Cecilia’s work has been recognized nationally across higher education research, teaching, civic engagement, and institutional leadership.
Selected honors include:
- Helen C. Bailey Alumni Award — University of Pennsylvania
- Graduate Career Champion Award — University of Denver
- John Saltmarsh Award for Emerging Leaders in Civic Engagement — AASCU
Her research and commentary have also informed national media coverage, philanthropic initiatives, and policy conversations about public higher education.
Help Your Institution Connect to Its Mission
and Communicate Its Value With Confidence
Whether you are leading strategic planning efforts, providing professional development for faculty and staff, marketing the value of your institution, recruiting students, designing student success initiatives, or crafting higher education policy, Cecilia Orphan brings research-backed insight, compelling storytelling, and actionable perspective to every audience she serves.
