Advise
Connect academic priorities with institutional goals. Clarify challenges and develop practical strategies for moving forward.
Higher Education Strategy & Design
From academic vision to demonstrated competence.
Helping higher education leaders design programs that assess demonstrated skills and lead the institutional change needed to prepare graduates for what comes next.
Let's Start a ConversationThe Mastery Advisors Approach
Good strategy is only the beginning.
Higher education needs credible evidence of what graduates know, what they can do, and how well they can apply their knowledge and skills. Achieving this requires academic rigor, thoughtful design, and people working together.
Design
Strengthen curricular design so institutions can demonstrate graduate capabilities.
Implement
Engage faculty, bridge departmental divides, and build shared commitment to meaningful, lasting change that serves students.
Areas of Expertise
From academic priorities to practical solutions.
Specialized expertise and strategic partnership for the complex challenges facing academic leaders.
Direct Assessment
Strengthen how institutions define, measure, and use demonstration of learner abilities to guide decisions and demonstrate outcomes.
Competency-Based Education
Advance educational models that place demonstrated knowledge and skills at the center of academic progress and achievement.
Curricular Design
Align program outcomes, learning experiences, assessment, and the capabilities graduates and employers need.
Faculty Engagement & Change
Bring academic departments together, engage faculty in collaboration, and help leaders turn ambitious plans into action.
A Practical Perspective
Academic expertise meets the realities of change.
Meaningful institutional improvement requires more than a sound plan. It requires strategic leadership, academic rigor, and an understanding of how colleges actually work.
Mastery Advisors helps leaders clarify goals, strengthen educational design, engage faculty, and navigate the organizational challenges that accompany significant change.
About Mastery Advisors
A partner to academic leaders.
About the Founder
Erin Thomas is an experienced California community college faculty leader, curriculum specialist, and direct assessment competency-based education (DA CBE) practitioner. Erin was the Faculty lead for the launch of California’s first public community college DA CBE degree program who then facilitated rapid expansion to multiple degrees and certificates. Erin brings a unique combination of 17 years of higher education leadership, statewide governance participation, instructional expertise, and 17 years of executive-level private sector experience.
Start a Conversation
Working through a complex academic challenge?
Whether you're strengthening assessment, rethinking a curriculum, exploring competency-based education, or bringing departments together around a shared priority, let's talk.
Contact Mastery Advisors