Chandra Harris-McCray, Ph.D.

Chandra Harris-McCray, Ph.D. (she/her), Senior Consultant, has more than 13 years of leadership in inaugural and progressive marketing and communications roles. She serves as the Vice-Chancellor of Strategic Marketing and Communications at the University of Illinois Chicago. Previously, she spearheaded philanthropic and alumni engagement marketing and communications as the founding Executive Director at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Tennessee System and Foundation.

Chandra is an award-winning inclusive and integrated strategist and architect of campaign, brand, content, and engagement blueprints across multimedia. A believer in the power of story, Chandra is a purpose-filled storyteller and story listener who has served at the helm of various newspapers throughout the Midwest and Southeast.

She is an equity-centered researcher who received her doctorate in higher education administration and leadership, focusing on race, gender, and philanthropy, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. As the first and only college graduate in her family, she also has a graduate certificate in critical race and cultural studies and a master’s degree in marketing. Her bachelor’s degree in journalism, focusing on communications and women’s studies, is from Illinois State University.

She has been a selected fellow of the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Women of Color in Fundraising and Philanthropy Radiant Leadership Institute, Kaiser Foundation, and Poynter Institute. Additionally, she has garnered accolades from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, University & College Designers Association, Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, Society of Publication Designers, American Advertising Federation, Associated Press of Managing Editors, Scripps, Society of Professional Journalists, Tennessee Press Association, and Tennessee College Public Relations Association, and the Tennessee College Public Relations Association.