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LO Alum an Integral Part of Omaha’s Learning Community
Since graduating from LO in 1983, Lorraine Chang has been integral in shaping leaders throughout Omaha and the country. A strategic consultant and coach to leaders in government and non-profit organizations, Chang was most recently a Senior Partner with The Public Strategies Group, a consulting firm based in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, she created a strategic leadership development program for the New York City Department of Finance and served as a lead consultant for PSG’s transformation partnership with the Office of Federal Student Aid of the U.S. Department of Education. This year, Chang was elected to serve on the Omaha metropolitan area’s Learning Community Coordinating Council, a collaborative body designed to enhance educational opportunities for students throughout the city. Chang attributes much of her undeniable success to the time she spent in Leadership Omaha.
“Leadership Omaha was such a great experience,” recalls Chang. “I had recently moved to Omaha from Washington D.C. and it gave me the opportunity to meet other like-minded people and become familiar with the city. Even though I graduated from Leadership Omaha over 25 years ago, it served as a foundation for my current involvement in the community. I was able to build a network of people, and they helped get the word out that I was running for office. The program definitely had a formative influence on my leadership development and encouraged me to get more involved.”
As a member of the Learning Community Coordinating Council, Chang is part of a unique effort to improve education across all eleven public school districts in two counties. And, though the state has placed every district under one Learning Community, the identity of each will not be compromised. “With the Learning Community, our intention is essentially three-fold,” describes Chang. “We expect to improve student performance and close the achievement gap, improve socio-economic diversity, and create more innovative programs and services for families and children in need. If the Learning Community is successful, we will have built opportunities for kids across all eleven school districts.”
Undoubtedly, such an endeavor is certain to have its challenges. “Just the fact that this concept is new and very unique in the country is an obstacle,” admits Chang. “We have to work very hard to be clear about what value we’re adding to the public school system. We need people to see the importance of improving education outside of individual districts.”
Chang received her undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Rochester and law degree from George Washington University. Currently, she lives in Omaha with her husband, a law professor at Creighton University. Her daughter is a sophomore at Saint Louis University and her son, a graduate of Boston College, is studying law at Chicago-Kent law school.