The search for the Associate Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs (AVCSA) concluded in October, and Dr. Sonya Pearson has accepted the offer to fill the role. Thanks go to the college and system office staff who took part in the search process.
Pearson
A Leader Built for Student Success
Dr. Pearson brings three decades of leadership across healthcare, higher education, corporate strategy, and the nonprofit sector. She holds both a Juris Doctor in Executive Administration and a Ph.D. in Organizational Psychology and Development. She has advised more than 17 CEOs and executive boards and has led portfolios of up to $20 million and cross-functional teams of up to 400 professionals.
Her higher education career includes serving as Vice President at the College of Southern Nevada, Vice President of Student Affairs at Mesa Community College, and Chief Student Affairs Officer at Crowder College. In those roles, she worked to scale equitable access to college through TRiO programs, high school equivalency programs, and inclusion models for veterans and justice-impacted citizens. She also expanded childcare accessibility and workforce development.
Dr. Pearson co-authored a $75 million ARPA capital improvement and operational grant proposal. State-level mandates prevented its direct implementation, but the state incorporated her core grant initiatives into funding to address childcare deserts in rural Nevada.
Operational Excellence and Compliance
Dr. Pearson is known for pairing vision with rigor. Her data-driven operational overhauls saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in administrative overhead, and she has established multi-region wrap-around service networks. She has also led comprehensive Title IX, Title VII, and regulatory compliance frameworks.
In healthcare education, she managed million-dollar budget portfolios across a multi-college, multi-campus matrix structure supporting facilities, funding, and programming for 28 health sciences programs. She developed a corrective action plan for a Dental Faculty Practice that eliminated two consecutive years of critical audit findings and recovered Ryan White Foundation fee subsidy and reimbursement grants. She also held strategic discussions with Rear Admiral Cedric B. Guyton, PharmD, MPH, of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps on accelerated, debt-free academic pathways and tuition subsidies for nearly 4,000 allied health and limited-entry health sciences students.
Dr. Pearson has experience in four state systems and has served on six college accreditation teams. She is also a board member of the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education (CAS).
Partnerships and Community Impact
Beyond higher education, Dr. Pearson is Founder and CEO of Keys Solutions LLC, a wellness and strategic consulting firm. She previously served as Strategic Medical Advisor to the CEO of Vigur and as Director of Community Strategy & Partnerships for Bright Starts Pediatrics, where she worked to expand care coordination for the neurodivergent community.
Her work also has international reach. Alongside Ambassador Buddhi Athuada, former Ambassador of Sri Lanka to France, Monaco, and Andorra, she has helped design the Global Skills Nexus (GSN) Project, a bilateral workforce development initiative that partners with U.S. community colleges to build skills-to-employment pipelines in developing markets. Closer to home, she secured grant sponsorship agreements with the Maricopa County Medical Society Foundation to serve as Target Executive Sponsor and Proposed Project Partner for The VOICES…ASD Project, which creates career tracks for neurodivergent adults in artificial intelligence, healthcare solutions, and medical technology.
Her record of public service is extensive. It includes the Las Vegas Medical District Advisory Council, the Board of Accessible Spaces Incorporated, and the National League of Cities’ Communities Learning in Partnership projects. She has also served as Compliance Committee Chair for Feeding America’s United Food Bank, Finance Committee Chair for Workforce and Missouri Economic Development, and President of the National Council on Student Development.
Looking Ahead
Dr. Pearson’s career has centered on legal defensibility, fiscal accountability, and community-driven results. As she steps into the role, that experience is expected to support continued strengthening of student affairs and to benefit students, staff, and the broader campus community.
Dr. Pearson will begin her new position on November 10.
