Meet President Ochoa
and other Award Winners Featured
at the Human Excellence Awards,
Tuesday, June 19,
Harvard University
Dr. Eduardo Ochoa is an innovator and leader in education who understands the power of community support and social outreach.
As president of California State University at Monterey Bay, he has used the innovative capacities of a major American university to advance the implementation of business models that impact the broad community in mission critical ways.
He has made social equity and justice for neighborhoods and communities around the university a high priority. To advance community impact, he has set a unique course for the student body to become accomplished students and to also become citizens who advance community connection, higher learning, and career impact simultaneously.
His work has set a new kind of standard for universities to provide resources within innovative partnerships to advance a region socially, economically and culturally.
As an example, early in his tenure, Dr. Ochoa was concerned that elementary and high school students in the county of Monterey were preforming well below the state average. Research suggested that less than a quarter of students were college ready after graduating from high school. Post-secondary education is often a requirement for advancing in the modern economy. He knew that improved educational outcomes would drive social advancements, and support community health, safety, support structures, and other key dimensions of community success.
As a result, Dr. Ochoa founded the Bright Futures Education Partnership.
The program fosters progress in education outcomes for local students from cradle to career. It is a collective of university and community leaders who commit to improving the pipeline of quality talent within Monterey County, a county with a majority Hispanic population and low incomes, low employment, and stressed livelihoods.
Together the leaders have committed resources to improve the educational experience of children and teens in the community. Their goal is to lift the college readiness and graduation rates of the community from 20% to 60% by the year 2025. The program is well on its way to achieving its goals with defined targets and assessments implemented effectively to drive results. .
Service learning is valued within the college curriculum and promotes student outreach to underserved communities and close opportunity gaps. During the past academic year, more than 800 students provided service to 350 community agencies and schools throughout Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey counties.
Ethical business is one of the cornerstone tenants of the university’s programming
Students in the business school are taught to impact society in powerfully positive ways through the creative use of business as a resource to provide services and products while advancing the cause of the broader society and the planet. Business school leadership has designed 5 bottom-line outputs to track success and progress, including a business’ impact on its people, ethics, equity, planet, and profitability. Practitioners are encouraged to understand and drive all 5 “bottom lines.”
Dr. Ochoa committed his life to advocating for education as a tool for social change and social impact. Through Dr. Eduardo Ochoa’s leadership, a major university has become a catalyst for social and economic development.
The school’s mission extends beyond the halls of their institution to focus on community education and advancement.
For his innovative approaches to higher education and community advancement, we are honoring Dr. Eduardo Ochoa with The 2018 Human Excellence Award.
Harvard University
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Our conference mission is to
1) Honor leaders and corporations making a
difference as a model for a new generation and
2) Empower youth leaders with leadership skills in social impact and conversations that connect youth with companies doing powerful work for mentorship. The output of the conference will be a commitment to impactful projects in the neighborhood to have impact and make a difference.