Andrea Garrity is Principal Investigator for Portland State University’s $8M ACCE Postsecondary Student Success Grant—one of eight institutions selected nationally in 2024 to improve degree attainment and expand equitable transfer pathways. As Executive Director of Student Success at PSU, she leads campus wide efforts to improve outcomes and strengthen the student experience through collaborative change management, thoughtful systems design, and an unwavering commitment to elevating student voice.
Andrea has spent her time at PSU leading large-scale, student-centered transformation work. Her portfolio includes modernizing PSU’s student success infrastructure, from the migration to Slate CRM to redesigning the student communications lifecycle and integrating student success strategies into the curriculum. She is known for removing systemic barriers, building clear and supportive pathways, and creating environments where first-generation, low-income, transfer, and academically underprepared students can achieve their goals.
A core part of Andrea’s leadership is building the data and feedback infrastructure that allows PSU to understand what students are experiencing in real time. She helped develop PSU’s student-success analytics engine, expanded use of qualitative tools such as the Student Experience Survey and EdSights, and strengthened predictive and operational dashboards used across the university. Her ability to blend student stories with data, and translate both into action, has contributed to increases in first-year retention and other student success outcomes.
Andrea leads with implementation in mind. She worked collaboratively to implement PSU’s project-management framework for student success work, allowing cross-unit initiatives to move through with change management support, shared accountability, and meaningful partnership.
Her grant leadership extends beyond ACCE; she served as co-investigator for PSU’s $1M stop-out reengagement effort and has helped secure and implement multimillion-dollar grants focused on transfer, retention, and student communications. She also represents PSU in national learning communities, including the Aspen–AASCU Transfer Student Success Intensive and WICHE’s No Holding Back initiative, where she advances regional alignment and elevates practices that improve equity for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and low-income students.
A scholar–practitioner, Andrea is an ABD doctoral candidate in Sociology of Education with an expected completion in 2026 and is studying institutional habitus, organizational behavior, and the lived experiences of low-income students at broad-access institutions. Her work is grounded in a simple belief: institutions are most effective when they listen to students, use data thoughtfully, and design systems that remove barriers instead of creating them.