Shannon Looney

Shannon Looney is a principal and senior consultant of SML Consulting and a consultant with some of AASCU’s academic innovation and transformation student success efforts. She brings over 15 years of experience in higher education research, programming, and strategic planning. Her career experiences span across national research and policy organizations and major higher education associations. Prior to launching her firm, Looney was the deputy executive director of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU), in which she directed the office’s student success initiatives and served as the managing director of USU/APLU staff and their associated initiatives. Her expertise is on student success programming, leadership engagement, and organizational change management efforts with a focus on public four-year universities. She is certified in design thinking through Portland State University (Ore.) and has received additional certification and training in process mapping, equity facilitation, and collective impact theory.