Linda Michalowski is the Vice Chancellor for Student Services and Special Programs for the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office. She returned to Student Services from the Governmental Relations and External Affairs division where she served for 10 months as Interim Vice Chancellor and for five years as Director of Strategic Communications and Federal Relations.
Linda was the Chancellor's Office Coordinator for Student Financial Assistance Programs until 1998, leading student aid policy development, representing community colleges in state and national forums, providing guidance to campus financial aid offices, and administering community college financial aid programs. She came to the Chancellor's Office in 1983 as an independent consultant to work with the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) program for disadvantaged students, and in the following year was named the Board Financial Assistance Program Coordinator when legislation imposing the first community college enrollment fee called for the development of a new financial aid program to ensure the fee would not pose a barrier to the enrollment of low-income students.
Throughout her more than 20-year career at the Chancellor's Office, Linda has been an advocate for the system's colleges and students in the state and federal legislative and policy arenas. She has helped raise the national profile of the California Community Colleges system as a model for providing open access to higher education and career development opportunities for low-income and underrepresented students. She has served on the American Association of Community Colleges and Association of Community College Trustees Joint Commission on Federal Relations and was the 1998 recipient of the American Association of Community Colleges Governmental Relations Award. She led the development and implementation of the systemwide California Community Colleges: The Way California Works public awareness campaign and the I Can Afford College statewide financial aid media campaign.
Prior to joining the community college system, Linda was Research Assistant for JD Franz Research, a Sacramento firm with an extensive education and public policy survey research portfolio. A native of the East coast and alumnus of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, she lives in Sacramento with her teenage daughter.