Dorothy Styles serves as vice president for operations and organizational development with Complete College America (CCA). Dorothy joined CCA in March 2023 to support the organization’s efforts to build capacity and increase organizational effectiveness during a critical time in CCA’s evolution. Complete College America’s headquarters is in Indianapolis, Indiana and is an Alliance of 50 states, territories, and higher education consortia where executives have committed to reimagining systems to be engines of equity, prosperity, and hope.
Dorothy’s career in college and career readiness spans more than 35 years. The commonality of her work experience throughout her career has been a focus on equity and access to postsecondary education for historically-excluded students of color. Dorothy’s career success is directly correlated to the establishment of engaging, transformative, and successful collaborative partnerships with various entities, including school districts, government agencies, nonprofit agencies, foundations, higher education institutions, and community-based organizations, to achieve the shared outcome of increasing postsecondary opportunities for students of color.
Dorothy’s career began in direct service to students as a career specialist with Jobs for Georgia Graduates, providing employability skills training, job placement, and college enrollment assistance for students of color. Additional work experience includes serving nine years with Project GRAD Atlanta to increase college readiness, college enrollment and scholarship support for minority students to attend technical, two-year, and four-year postsecondary institutions. At Project GRAD Atlanta, Dorothy served as college readiness program manager, director of college readiness, and chief of staff/managing director of programs. Following her tenure at Project GRAD Atlanta, Dorothy joined the team of Communities in Schools of Atlanta. As the director of programs, Dorothy oversaw the programs department, consisting of seventy team members, to provide wraparound supports to sixty-three schools in four metropolitan Atlanta school districts to improve high school graduation rates and postsecondary enrollment for underserved communities.
Dorothy holds a B.A. in political science from Virginia State University and has also taken additional graduate courses at Clark Atlanta University. She holds certificates in nonprofit management and supervision, nonprofit leadership and human resources. She is the proud mother of two adult children.