Alumni Resources

BIO: COMING SOON! 

PROGRAMS AND SCHOOLS SERVED

After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan, Alison spent 12 years teaching first in rural North Carolina and then in New Orleans.  In addition to teaching math, she coached soccer, wrote curriculum, planned student trips across the country, and routinely served as grade-level chair.  During this time, Alison was the recipient of the NC Charter School Teacher of the Year Award, The Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics & Science Teaching, and the Harriet Ball Excellence in Teaching Award (KIPP).    
Since transitioning from the classroom, Alison has worked at Collegiate Academies first as executive assistant to the CEO and now as an alumni advisor at CA Next. In her four years at CA Next, she is proud of the relationships she's built with her 200+ alumni caseload and the work she's done to drive the data-centered growth of the team.  Alison supports the majority of Collegiate alumni at community colleges & junior colleges, in addition to ensuring we are prioritizing what will most positively impact the more than 2,300 Collegiate alumni CA Next serves.  Alison is a proud mom of two boys (ages 4 & 6), who she hopes will grow up to love math, foreign languages, and social justice as much as she does. 

PROGRAMS/SCHOOLS SERVED

Email: vcelestine@collegiateacademies.org

Phone: (504) 931-0531‬‬

Schools/Programs served:

• Southern Baton Rouge
• LSU
• BRCC
• Grambling
• Northwestern
• ULM
• SELU

Frederick Johnson IV is a native of New Orleans, LA. He served as an educator at Edna Karr High School for four years teaching Science. For the last four years, he was a Manager of College Completion and primarily focused on assisting high school graduates with successfully transitioning to college and career programming. He is now the Senior Director of CA Next at Collegiate Academies and is tasked with leading a team of great advisors whose primary focus is to create and implement strategies for fostering college and career success. He is the Founder of Grind To Grad, an organization dedicated to increasing college graduation rates for Black undergraduates, and the Founder of Fourth Education Firm, LLC which is a dynamic educational consulting firm with the goal of improving academic outcomes for students by unlocking critical mindsets and developing transferable skills for advocacy and independence.

Schools/Programs served:

• Classes: 2016-2022

Email: lkatz@collegiateacademies.org

Phone: (504) 228-9717‬

Schools/Programs served:

• Classes: 2012-2014

BIO: COMING SOON!

Schools/programs served:

• University of New Orleans (UNO)
• Students enlisting in the military
• Occidental College
• Pasadena City College

Email: dnewton@collegiateacademies.org

Phone: (504) 389-0608

Schools/Programs served:

• Dillard University
• Xavier University 
• University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL)
• Nunez Community College 
• Delgado Community College

Cristina is a dual citizen of the US and Mexico by birth, and a citizen of France by naturalization, originally from Tampico, Mexico. Living between countries and cultures, Cristina was homeschooled until entering high school. This unconventional academic pathway offered opportunities to engage more in the arts, languages and travel. After attending high school, Cristina joined AmeriCorps NCCC in 2004 and served in the Capital Region Campus in Washington, DC, completing projects including state park maintenance, disaster relief, and more. After this initial gap year, Cristina spent another 2 years working in the service industry before starting college at age 21, majoring in Communication with a minor in Journalism. In 2008, though the AmeriCorps Alumni association, Cristina participated in a one-time AmeriCorps VISTA program in New Orleans, LA, working with the New Orleans Public Library. After graduating and working at a national newspaper in Mexico, she was accepted in the Teaching Assistant Program in France (TAPIF) and assigned to a high school outside of Lyon in 2010. From there, she stayed and worked in France as both an English and Spanish as a foreign language teacher for an additional 4 years. In 2015, she returned to live and work in New Orleans, covering positions such as data manager, admissions, and operations. Her passions include offering guidance to young people for gap year experiences and advocating for immigrant/non-native English speakers.

Schools/Programs served:

• Bridge Year
• Classes: 2015-2021
• English Language Learners

Email: mwilliams1@collegiateacademies.org

Phone: (504) 239-6491‬

Schools/Programs served:

• Grambling
• Delgado Community College
• Alcorn State
• Jackson State
• Alabama State 
• Mississippi State
• Texas Southern University
• Benedict College
• Philander Smith College
• Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College
• Huston-Tillotson University
• College of Wooster
• Texas Tech University
• Millsaps College
• University of West Georgia
• SUNO
• Tulane
• Loyola
• Southeastern
• Aveda