Held in honor of W. Dallas Herring  — whose transformative vision and tireless work culminated in the inception of North Carolina’s community colleges — the annual Dallas Herring Lecture invites community college leaders from across the country to speak on urgent and emerging topics, framing how to address the issues and proposing a path forward. 

The guest speaker for this year's lecture is Russell Lowery-Hart, chancellor of the Austin Community College District. Lowery-Hart's lecture is titled "Transforming Higher Education: Loving Our Students to Success Through Intentional, Courageous and Systemic Leadership." The lecture will explore how higher education can infuse love into policies, processes, classrooms, instruction, services, partnerships and spaces and how doing so allows us to walk in partnership with our students and one another.