Nationally, Carol is a founding member of the American Talent Initiative (ATI), a consortium that aims to graduate annually 50,000 additional low- and moderate-income students from the nation’s top colleges and universities.

Among other roles, she co-chaired, with General Robert Caslen, the NCAA’s Commission to Combat Campus Sexual Violence and she served on President Obama’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans. She has spoken at numerous venues, including the Aspen Ideas Festival, edX Global Forum, and the Milken Global Conference. She has served on the boards of the Kinkaid School (Houston, Texas), American Council on Education (Washington, D.C.), the Levine Museum of the New South (Charlotte, North Carolina), and Credential Engine, a national organization that enables “credential transparency” in the post-secondary educational sector.

In 2019, Princeton awarded Carol the James Madison medal, given in recognition of an alumnus/a’s distinguished career advancing the cause of graduate education or record of outstanding public service. She has received numerous academic awards, and earned fellowships from the Mellon Foundation, the Whiting Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation and Villa I Tatti, Harvard’s Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence, Italy. Carol is the author of two books and many articles. Her writings have appeared in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, Huffington Post, The Hechinger Report, The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Carol earned a B.A. in American history from the University of Chicago, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with special and general honors, and a Ph.D. in European history from Princeton University. She then joined the History Department at Rice University, serving there on the faculty, as the founding director of the Boniuk Center and as a vice provost and vice president before she was named president of Davidson.