Katie Hern

Katie Hern is an English instructor at Skyline College in San Bruno, California, and the cofounder of the California Acceleration Project (CAP). CAP’s professional development programs support the state’s 115 community colleges to use high school grades for placement; replace stand-alone remedial courses with corequisite models; implement math pathways; and teach with high-challenge, high-support pedagogy. In 2016, Washington Monthly named Hern and CAP cofounder Myra Snell to their list of the “16 Most Innovative People in Higher Education.”

Hern has published 20 articles, book chapters, and reports focused on integrated reading and writing pedagogy, remedial reform in California, the need to transform placement policies, design principles for accelerated curricula, and the equity imperative of overhauling remediation. Hern’s most recent publication, Getting There, focuses on the implementation of AB 705 across California. She also coauthored a book with her birthmother called Reunion: A Year in Letters Between a Birthmother and the Daughter She Couldn’t Keep (Seal Press, 1999).

Hern holds a doctorate and master’s degree in educational leadership from Mills College, a master’s degree in American culture studies from Bowling Green State University, and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from New York University. Previously, Hern was an English faculty member at Chabot College, the codirector of California’s Faculty Inquiry Network, and the dean of academic affairs at John F. Kennedy University.