Feliza Ortiz-Licon '99, Ed.D.

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Feliza Ortiz-Licon '99, Ed.D., has joined the Campaign for College Opportunity, a higher education nonprofit advocacy organization, as executive vice president. In that role, she will lead as a key strategist in coalition building, policy advocacy, program design, fund development and research to maximize the organization's influence in supporting California students of all backgrounds to access and succeed in higher education.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants who knew the value of education, Ortiz-Licon went on post-graduation to champion equity for students, working as an elementary school teacher serving multilingual learners, and later serving 6.2 million students for five years on the California State Board of Education. She also served in a research and policymaking role for the Los Angeles Unified School District and has worked expertly in the nonprofit sector to advance opportunities for historically underserved communities.

Ortiz-Licon's extensive work in the Latino civil rights and equity space has been laser focused on advancing policies that create equitable Latinx representation within the education sector and teaching profession, improving outcomes for Latinx students from birth to college, and ensuring that Latinx leaders are represented from the classroom to the boardroom.

After receiving her bachelor’s degree in political science and Chicana/o studies, Ortiz-Licon earned a master’s degree from UC Berkeley in city and regional planning and a joint doctoral degree in education leadership from UC Irvine and Cal State Los Angeles. Her dissertation, “The Symbiotic Relationship Between Cities and Schools,” explored the role of federal policies in shaping communities, the uneven implementation of large education reforms, and the impact of these federal and local policies in student educational outcomes across the Los Angeles metropolitan area.