Aurora Flores Garcia

Aurora Flores Garcia is the Senior Program Officer for education at Circle of Service Foundation, supporting great organizations to enhance community, opportunity, and well-being. As a Latina immigrant from Nicaragua, Aurora’s experiences as a student in the U.S. fueled her belief that education is a fundamental cornerstone of society, yet how students experience this system is often inequitable. Her desire to increase access to resources and opportunities for underrepresented students led her to working in high schools and higher education institutions focused on open-access, high-support models. Notably, she served as the Executive Director of Student Success at National Louis University’s Undergraduate College leading an innovative student coaching model beating national persistence odds. Prior to this, she served in Chicago Public Schools as a Postsecondary Liaison for Thomas Kelly High School, where she relentlessly helped thousands of students realize their postsecondary goals and spearheaded school-wide initiatives that resulted in record-breaking achievements for the school. In 2017, Aurora was also selected to be a Surge Institute Fellow, a year-long fellowship focused on developing transformative leaders of color in the education space. Aurora is a proud graduate of Chicago Public Schools and was awarded the prestigious Posse Foundation scholarship for both her undergraduate career at DePauw University where she studied anthropology and Spanish, and her graduate career at the University of Washington where she studied Educational Leadership and Policy, and Non-Profit Management.