Pam Brown Schachter, Ph.D., has over forty years of college counseling, academic advisement and high school/college curriculum experience, which has extended throughout California higher education with her involvement on many statewide advisory boards and committees. In addition to teaching freshmen orientation and career counseling courses, she has presented at numerous state conferences, college nights at local high schools and for numerous independent college counselor tours.

When Senate Bill 1440 passed in California in 2010, the California Community College Academic Senate asked Pam to join them to work directly with the discipline faculty in the development of the state-mandated transfer degrees from the California Community Colleges to the California State University campuses. From 2010 to 2013, Pam worked with statewide inter-segmental faculty in overseeing the development and completion of transfer degrees (AA-Ts and AS-Ts) in the top 26 majors as well as potential statewide model curriculum for Engineering and Nursing programs.

Pam holds a Ph.D. in higher education from UCLA with a focus on curriculum, articulation and transfer advisement. Though Pam’s particular expertise is the western states, she annually tours, visits and researches colleges and universities through the U.S., Canada and abroad. Recent college trips include the states of Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Montana, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, and Washington.

Pam’s special skills are in assisting all types of transfers: forward transfer from two to four-year; lateral transfers (from one four-year to another); reverse transfers (students moving from four-year to two-year colleges to prepare for transfer to another 4-year college); and students “swirling” between colleges. She focuses on matching students to colleges and universities that facilitate the development of their personal and educational goals and planning the appropriate coursework needed to best prepare the student.

Pam has extensive knowledge about California higher education systems having been a student in the California Community College system, two University of California campuses, and a California State University campus. Pam worked at Marymount College for over 30 years as a faculty member, academic advisor and articulation officer. She founded the Advisement and Transfer Center at Marymount College in the early 1990s and directed the Career Center and College Placement Center in the 1980s.

Pam has been a member of the Palos Verdes Peninsula community and South Bay area for 40 years. She and her husband, Robert, have been very active in the local community, particularly when their children attended the Palos Verdes schools. Pam continues to be committed to the community through various professional and community support organizations. As an avid equestrian who holds the United States Dressage Federation bronze and silver medals for achievement in Dressage, Pam is uniquely qualified to assist students interested in pursuing athletics in college. Presently, her students are participating in college athletics both Division I and III (equestrian, waterpolo, baseball, soccer, tennis, and volleyball).