Terry O'Banion
President Emeritus and Senior League Fellow, League for Innovation in the Community College, and Senior Professor of Practice, Kansas State University

Dr. Terry O’Banion was President of the League for Innovation in the Community College for 23 years until his retirement. Under his leadership the League became an international organization serving over 750 colleges recognized by Change magazine in 1998 as “the most dynamic organization in the community college world.” Since retirement O’Banion has worked on special projects for the League for Innovation, MetLife Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Chauncey Group International, Walden University, and National American University.

In honor of his decades of service to education, six national awards have been established in his name: the Terry O’Banion Student Technology Award created by Microsoft; the Terry O’Banion Prize for Teaching and Learning created by Educational Testing Service; the Terry O’Banion Shared Journey Award created by the National Council on Student Development; the O’Banion Leadership Scholarship created by Walden University; the John Roueche and Terry O’Banion International Leadership Award created by the League for Innovation; and the Terry O’Banion Legacy Award created by the League for Innovation.

In a survey of 11,000 higher education leaders reported in Change magazine in January 1998, O’Banion was named one of eleven “Idea Champions” who set the agenda for all of higher education—and the only community college leader on the list.

O’Banion has consulted in more than 1,000 community colleges in the United States and Canada. He is one of the leading spokespersons in the country on the Learning College and has keynoted conferences on the Learning College in dozens of states and Canadian provinces and in Australia, the United Arab Emirates, and Japan.

Author of 18 books and over 250 monographs, chapters, and articles on the community college, his 1997 book, A Learning College for the 21st Century, was awarded the Phillip E. Frandson Award for Literature in the Field of Continuing Higher Education.  In March of 2019, Rowan & Littlefield and AACC published O’Banion’s 13 Ideas That Are Transforming the Community College World and, in the spring of 2020, published his Academic Advising in the Community College. His newest book with co-author, Maggie Culp, titled Student Success in the Community College: What Really Works? was published in January 2021.

O’Banion has served as a dean of students at Central Florida Community College, founding dean at Santa Fe Community College (FL), and vice chancellor for education for the Dallas County Community College District (TX).  He has been a Professor of Higher Education at the University of Illinois; Distinguished Visiting Professor at The University of Texas; Visiting Professor at Berkeley, Florida State, Hawaii, and Toronto; the Marie Y. Roberts Endowed Professor of Higher Education at the University of North Texas; Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Antioch University McGregor School of Management; Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Doctoral Faculty at National American University; and National Thought Leader for Educational Testing Service. He is currently Senior Professor of Practice in the Community College Leadership Program at Kansas State University.

O’Banion is a published poet and has won over 40 blue ribbons from the International Date Festival and Orange County Fair for his creative cooking. He and his wife, Yolande, have six children, 12 grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren.