Erika Lacro

As vice president for community colleges, Erika Lacro is responsible for executive leadership, policy decision-making, resource allocation and development of support services for the University of Hawaiʻi’s seven community colleges. A key focus of her work is to further support the community college student success agenda.

Lacro served as Honolulu Community College chancellor from July 2012 and is the first woman to hold the chief executive position at that campus. She served as vice chancellor of academic affairs at Honolulu CC from 2007 through 2012 and before that held several executive and management positions at the UH Mānoa School of Travel Industry Management, including assistant dean, director of academic advising and director of internship and career development. Before joining UH, she held several management roles at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

At the statewide level, Lacro has led academic affairs initiatives in the Achieving the Dream Initiative, Complete College America and the Reverse Transfer Initiative. She was successful in working to gain funding through EDUCAUSE to upgrade the STAR Academic Journey for the entire UH System and also served as the principal investigator for a UH Community Colleges consortium, a multi-year $24.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grants program to develop and support training programs that lead to jobs in the agriculture, energy and health industries. She serves as a commissioner on the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities and has chaired several comprehensive accreditation visits for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges of the Western Association.

She holds a master’s and bachelor’s degree in travel industry management, and a PhD in communication and information sciences from UH Mānoa.