UDC’s Board of Trustees
Joshua Wyner
Joshua Wyner is the Vice President and Executive Director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, which aims to strengthen practice and develop leadership that substantially improves college student success. Started in early 2011, the Program’s first two initiatives are the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, which strives to reward and shine a spotlight on community colleges that deliver exceptional student results and stimulate replication of successful campus practices and the New College Leadership Project, which works to strengthen efforts to recruit and professionally develop college presidents who are driven by – and are capable of – substantially improving student success.
Josh has spent the past two decades as a nonprofit leader, initiating organizations aimed at improving educational outcomes and urban policy. From 2001-2009, Josh led the design and implementation of such programs as Executive Vice President of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation. There, he established national scholarship and grant-making programs for – and conducted original research about – high-achieving low-income students from elementary through graduate school. From 1995 to 2001, Josh was founding Executive Director of the DC Appleseed Center, which analyzes and actively seeks to resolve problems affecting the daily lives of those who live and work in the Washington, DC, area. During his tenure, DC Appleseed led successful efforts to resolve DC’s $5 billion unfunded pension liability and alter the structure of the DC Board of Education. Josh spent his early career as an organizer and policy analyst with Citizen Action, as a program evaluator at the US Government Accountability Office, and an attorney with Beveridge & Diamond.
Josh has authored numerous reports, op-eds, and other publications about education and urban policy, including a 2014 book, What Excellent Community Colleges Do: Preparing All Students for Success (Harvard Education Press). He has a B.A. in History from Vassar College, holds a Master’s in Public Administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and is a cum laude graduate of New York University School of Law. Josh lives in his home town, Washington, D.C., with his wife and two teenage sons.
