Carlos Santiago, Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education announced in November that Dr. Patricia Marshall has joined the Department of Higher Education as the new Deputy Commissioner for Academic Affairs & Student Success.
Since 2012, Dr. Marshall has served as the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at Worcester State University (WSU). She holds a BA from Colby College and a PhD in Hispanic Studies from Brown University. She participated in the Upward Bound program at the University of Maine Orono from 1986-1990, received services from Education Talent Search, and was the 2014 recipient of the New England Educational Opportunity Association’s Achiever Award. In 2013, the Council for Opportunity in Education invited Dr. Marshall to testify before the US Congressional TRIO Caucus in Washington, DC to generate support for and awareness of the importance of TRIO programs in rural areas (“Meeting the Needs of Rural Low-Income Students”).
Dr. Marshall helped to launch WSU’s “Succeed in 4” retention and graduation improvement initiative through her work as Faculty Fellow. In that role, she established the groundwork for campus-wide retention efforts, played a key role in the selection and initial configuration of the Starfish Early Alert system, and served as the Principal Investigator on WSU’s first Vision Grant. She has co-presented on the work being done at WSU at the AAC&U, the New England Conference for Student Success (UMass Amherst), the NEASC Annual Conference, and the Massachusetts Educational Opportunity Association Annual Conference. Dr. Marshall is also a founding board member of MassEdCO, a statewide network of service sites that works with economically and educationally disadvantaged students. Prior to serving as AVPAA she was the founding Chair of the Department of World Languages and held a tenured appointment as an Associate Professor of Spanish at Worcester State University. Dr. Marshall has also held faculty appointments at Clark University, Wesleyan University, Providence College, and served as a clinical faculty member with the Brown School of Medicine. Her publications include a book on Calderon de la Barca, translations, book reviews, and peer reviewed articles on Spanish Golden Age literature.