Robin Redmond is currently the executive director of the Illinois Education Foundation (IEF), an educational foundation that works to broaden opportunities available to low‐income, highly-motivated Illinois community college students. In addition to her role at the IEF, Robin is also an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago in the Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management department and was the associate director for the Center for Arts Policy at Columbia College for more than six years. She is an accomplished author who has written extensively on education including “Putting the Arts in the Picture: Reframing Education in the 21st Century”, an internationally recognized book on arts education. Robin has authored articles featured in the Washington Post, Education Week, Education World, and Educational Leadership.

Robin began her career as an artist-in-residence at the Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild (MCG), a community-based, youth development organization in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that uses the arts as a mechanism to engage at-risk youth during school and non-school hours. While at MCG she developed a passion for the arts and education and has since dedicated her professional career to improving access to quality education. The relationships she formed with the students and with the people working diligently to transform learning and child development deeply affected her beliefs about community, society, and democracy.

Interested in developing a wider and deeper network in the field of education and engaging in challenging work relevant to her aspirations of using the arts to affect educational reform, Robin then worked as a program officer for the William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As the executive director of the IEF, she draws upon her experience in the arts, education, community development, philanthropy, and public policy to guide the organization in fulfilling its mission to help more students earn their associates degrees.
Robin holds a masters degree from the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and
Management at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

About Illinois Education Foundation

Founded in 2006 by a small group of social entrepreneurs, the Illinois Education Foundation (IEF) works to provide comprehensive student support services, coupled with financial assistance, to community college students who show tremendous potential to succeed, but who lack the necessary resources to ensure their academic and professional success. IEF scholars are supported through the Signature Fund Scholarship with a comprehensive set of academic support services—academic advising, tutoring, and mentoring—a 360 degree approach developed to ensure the highest possible rate of success-- complemented with financial assistance in the form of last-dollar scholarship assistance and need-based stipends. Our core belief is that when given a solid system of support, every student has the ability to reach his or her full personal and professional potential. Since its inception, the IEF has helped approximately 250 community college students with more than $3.5M in scholarship support to develop the skills necessary to succeed in the classroom and beyond.