SUPERPOWER: Breaking down barriers
Chancellor, West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission
Sarah Armstrong Tucker always knew she wanted to be involved in education and in helping kids in some way. First, she thought she wanted to be a child psychologist. Then she worked with the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for terminally and chronically ill children before she was a specialist in an adolescent girls’ group home. The latter role illuminated some things she wished she could change on a policy level, and that led her to a formative conversation with her mother. “She said that I could be a teacher and affect thousands of kids, or I could change policy and affect hundreds of thousands of kids,” Tucker says. “So that’s what I did.”
Now as the chancellor for the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, she is most proud of the impact she and her team have had on free community college opportunities, dual enrollment, and more streamlined processes for students and families. “Collectively, our work has really tried to break down barriers to education,” she says.
Tucker enjoys fixing things that don’t work, seeing the impact of those solutions, and witnessing the successes of students who thrive after making their way through their educational journeys. “I love going to graduations,” she says. “I love seeing students cross the stage and seeing their families and loved ones there cheering them on. It’s really special.”
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