Kourtney Cockrell

Kourtney Cockrell is the Founding Director of Student Enrichment Services at Northwestern University, an office that works with students coming from first-generation, lower-income, and/or undocumented backgrounds. Kourtney has spent 20 years working with organizations to increase access and opportunity for marginalized students and young professionals across higher education and the nonprofit and private sectors. Kourtney recently co-founded the FGLI Consortium, a national organization, providing leadership, expertise, and resources around the experience of first-generation and/or lower-income college students at highly selective universities and colleges. Kourtney has also provided consulting services with Johns Hopkins University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Prior to working with Student Enrichment Services, Kourtney worked with The Posse Foundation as the National Director of Career and Alumni Programs, served as an Admissions Officer with the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, and acted as National Diversity Recruiting Manager with McMaster-Carr. Kourtney has expertise in college access, social justice education, organizational change, nonprofit management, and talent management.

Kourtney earned her BA in African-American Studies and Sociology at the University of Michigan and her MS in Learning and Organizational Change from the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern.