ABOUT US
A Message from the ARC Steering Committee Chair and Vice Chair
Welcome!
The Academic Resilience Consortium (ARC) is a collaborative community dedicated to promoting academic resilience in higher education, to help college students learn, grow, and reach their goals. The faculty, staff, and students of the ARC represent the wide range of campus functions in higher education, including learning services, counseling services, advising programs, academic departments, campus life, and bridge programs, among others.
The ARC itself is a learning community. We are all in this work together: improving higher education, advancing our respective fields, and promoting college student success. As your ARC Chair and Vice Chair, we welcome your participation, questions, and feedback, and look forward to working and learning with you.
Rebeca Greenfield, M.Ed. Steering Committee Chair
Rebeca Greenfield serves as serves as the Chair for the Academic Resilience Consortium Steering Committee, and as the Assistant Director for Programming and Projects at the Student Success Center at The University of South Carolina (USC). In this role, she coordinates cross-campus partnerships, staff training, large-scale programming efforts, and other projects for the institution. She also oversees the Student Success Center’s marketing vision and social media presence.
Greenfield holds a B.A. in Economics from The University of Florida, and an M.Ed in Higher Education and Student Affairs from The University of South Carolina. She is passionate about the college student experience, and their success before, during, and after their time at the institution.
Mandy Hope, D.M., Steering Committee Vice Chair
Dr. Mandy Hope holds a B.A. and M.A. in Sociology and a Doctorate of Management in Organizational Leadership from the University of Phoenix. She brings 26 years of experience in higher education, serving in a wide range of academic and administrative roles. Dr. Hope taught associate- through master’s-level courses at the University of Phoenix for 14 years and has also taught and lectured at Riverside Community College, the University of California, Riverside, California Baptist University, and La Sierra University.
Prior and during her academic leadership work, Dr. Hope served as a social worker for seven years, supporting diverse communities. She also served as Director of the Love Your Neighbor Collaborative (LYNC), a nonprofit program overseeing university student internships. Most recently, Dr. Hope managed Parker University’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) and currently serves as QEP Director at South University, where she leads an institution-wide initiative focused on academic resilience. For the past two years, she has trained staff, faculty, and students on academic resilience strategies and has presented on the topic at national conferences.
In addition to her professional roles, Dr. Hope has served on numerous committees and boards, including her local City Council, the South University Institutional Review Board (IRB), the Riverside International Relations Council, and the Riverside Unified School District LCAP Advisory Committee, where she continues to advocate for positive change in education and community development.