Jordan Giannoni Harless Announced As Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce 2024 ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Award Recipient

It is with great pleasure that the Greater Stockton Chamber of Commerce announces the selection of Jordan Giannoni Harless, as its 2024 ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Award recipient. Past ATHENA’s, Delta College staff, Stockton Chamber staff and Board Members, and Jordan’s friends and family surprised Jordan with the news on Wednesday, September 18, 2024, after an Academic Senate meeting at Delta College.

The ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Award is dedicated to recognizing the next generation of women leaders in San Joaquin County. This award honors an individual who has demonstrated excellence, creativity, and initiative in her business or profession; provides valuable service to improve the quality of life for others in her community; and clearly serves as a role model for young women personally and professionally. The nominee must be younger than 40 years old on October 1st of the Award Year.

The ATHENA Awards will be presented at the annual ATHENA Awards Luncheon on November 21, 2024. Tickets plus sponsorship for this high-profile event are available through the Stockton Chamber of Commerce Athena webpage.

Jordan is a San Joaquin County native who returned to Stockton 10 years ago to serve her home community as an employee at San Joaquin Delta College. An alumna of Delta College herself, Jordan feels a special connection to the young adults starting their higher education journeys in Stockton. During her first two years employed with Delta College, Jordan served as the Classified Senate's Vice President and earned her Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree through UC Davis’s night and weekend program. Shortly after completing her MBA, Jordan secured a full-time faculty role at Delta and has been teaching for the last seven years. She has remained an active member of Delta's campus community in teaching courses in both Business and English, serving as the coordinator for all campus tutoring services, and participating in the shared governance process. In addition to teaching, she has served terms as a member of several of Delta College's shared governance committees to help shape the institution's future. Some of her committee work has included Student Success and Equity, Distance Education, Employee Diversity and Professional Development, and she currently serves on the campus’s Planning and Budget Committee as well as the college's Academic Senate. In 2019, Jordan was chosen by Delta's Vice President of Instruction to serve as a faculty lead to help the college author it's Institutional Self-Evaluation Report to ensure Delta College had a successful accreditation review and visit from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). In March of 2020, the college was visited by the review committee and was successful in defending their accreditation. Jordan has remained on the college's accreditation committee and recently helped author the mid-term report in preparation for the next accreditation visit in 2027.

Outside of Delta College, Jordan served the California Community College Chancellor’s Office as the Northern California Regional Coordinator for the California Community College Success Network (3CSN) from 2018-2020. Jordan received her doctorate degree from the Johns Hopkins University in May 2023 after successfully defending her doctoral research and now aspires to become an administrator at Delta College. Jordan strives to keep taking on new challenges, leadership roles, and learning opportunities to become the best educator she can possibly be.

Jordan began learning about local charities as a teen. Together with her family, she began “adopting” a mother and her children from the Women's Center each year during the holiday season and used money earned from her part-time job to donate gifts and personal items. In the years since, Jordan has developed a passion for women's issues and makes financial donations to various organizations supporting women and children every year. In 2019, Jordan became a member of the Stockton Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Stockton cohort. Together with her classmates, she spent a year learning about the events, organizations, and government agencies within the city of Stockton in addition to helping the group identify and complete their community project, the revitalization of the children's amphitheater at the Micke Grove Zoo. After graduation from the program, Jordan joined the Leadership Stockton Alumni Association (LSAA) board of directors and became President of the board in August of 2021. In addition to her service as LSAA board President, Jordan has served as a member of Stockton's American Cancer Society fundraising committee for the annual moonlight gala since 2018. From 2021-2023, Jordan served as a board member for the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors’ Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Committee (EEOAC), including a rotation as co-chair of the committee. In July of 2023, Jordan was selected as a fellow for San Joaquin County's Good Government program, a program that was designed to identify high potential leaders in the county and provide them skills and training to further their civic engagement. In the March 2024 election, Jordan became the first woman to ever win the Area 5 seat on the San Joaquin County Board of Education. Jordan is currently a member of Eleanor by Women United, serves on the World of Wonders Science Museum Foundation Board, and the board of directors for Lodi House, an organization that helps homeless women and children find stability and regain independence.

Jordan has continuously set an example that young women can achieve academic and financial success as well as independence, regardless of where they begin their academic or professional journeys. Jordan has continued to serve as a role model for her students in being a lifelong learner. Since beginning her career at Delta College, Jordan has earned 2 master's degrees and a doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University, where she was recognized as an outstanding scholar, and awarded a merit scholarship by the School of Education three years in a row. Throughout her current and former studies, Jordan has developed a particular interest in researching women in the workplace and hopes to continue researching and publishing scholarly articles about women post-doctorate. She has been featured in the Knowledge Quest podcast addressing fear and failure in academia and how young women can power through adversity and embrace setbacks as part of the growth process. In her spare time, Jordan privately mentors a small group of both young men and young women who are interested in attending college, but do not know where to start or how to choose a major that fits their skills and interests.

Jordan believes so strongly in the potential of young women and the power of education that she is currently working to establish a foundation in her family's name, which will award two scholarships for women pursuing degrees in business and STEM, respectively, as well as offer youth programs focused on helping young women develop confidence.

Past ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Award recipients are Jamie Bossuat, Brenna Butler-Garcia, Kristen Dyke, Erin Guy Castillo, Erika Hermosillo, Nikki Lowery, Shelby Moran (Riley), Frances Richardson, Angela Rosenquist, Monica Streeter, Jennifer Torres Siders and Anna Sass.