Alana Olschwang, PhD

Alana Olschwang, PhD, (she/her) has more than 20 years of experience in advancing planning and strategy, data infrastructure and evidence-based decision-making. Throughout her career, she has served in multiple capacities to promote institutional effectiveness and strategic planning within higher education through leadership across institutional research, workforce integration, strategic planning, evaluation and assessment.  

 

Alana’s research focuses on improving student success and smooth transition into the workforce, closing equity gaps, improving university processes and advancing culturally responsive and sustaining practices. This has led to support for multiple grants, including as Principal Investigator for a $5.3 million National Telecommunications and Information Administration grant for Connecting Minority Communities.  

 

In addition to serving on numerous accreditation review teams in California, Hawaii and Peru, Alana has supported data analytics fellows and faculty communities of practice for California State University. She earned a PhD in higher education and an MA in organizational behavior from Claremont Graduate University, and a BA in psychology from the University of California San Diego.  

 

Throughout her career, Alana has also worked closely and collaboratively with faculty, including: 

• Leading communities of practice with the college faculty development center to integrate evidence in the advancement of teaching and learning. 

• Supporting grant project development, monitoring and reporting. 

• Leading faculty and staff cohorts for statewide data literacy and fluency programs. 

• Developing toolkits and resource guides to combine data sources in support of chairs, associate deans and deans. 

• Providing projection, enrollment and disaggregated data reports to faculty committees and senate for trend analysis, projections and planning. 

• Conducting analytic studies and impact assessments for advising and program improvements. 

At FRCC, Alana identifies and leads transformative change around the college’s strategic priorities, in collaboration with internal and external stakeholders.