Suárez-Orozco Named Chancellor of UMass Boston

The University of Massachusetts board of trustees has selected Marcelo Suárez-Orozco to serve as the new chancellor for the system's Boston campus. The Associated Press reports that Suárez-Orozco had been recommended for the post by UMass President Marty Meehan. He is currently the Wasserman Dean at the University of California Los Angeles. He has also previously held positions at Harvard University and New York University.

Here is a portion of the press release about Suárez-Orozco...

Marcelo Suárez-Orozco named Chancellor of UMass Boston

UMass Boston “a special place that needs and deserves a special leader”

BOSTON -- UCLA Dean Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, as a teenager sent to the U.S. by parents seeking to save him from Argentina’s gathering Dirty War, today was unanimously selected to become chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Boston.

“This moment can be viewed as the completion of a journey that began when two parents, in what must have been a wrenching decision, gave their 17-year-old son an airplane ticket and sent him off to America to flee Argentina’s gathering storm-clouds of terror,” UMass President Marty Meehan said, in recommending Dr. Suárez-Orozco to the UMass Board of Trustees.

“Today, his remarkable journey arrives at the most appropriate of destinations, as Marcelo Suárez-Orozco becomes Chancellor of an institution that breathes life into the American Dream every day: the University of Massachusetts Boston,” Meehan added.

“UMass Boston is a special place that needs and deserves a special leader,” Meehan said, making his formal recommendation to the Board.

Suárez-Orozco, a former Harvard and NYU professor who now serves as Dean of UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, won unanimous approval and enthusiastic acclaim from the trustees.

“Because of the hard work that has been done at UMass Boston over the last few years, Dr. Suárez-Orozco is going to hit ground running with a financial foundation that is much stronger,” said UMass Board of Trustees Chairman Robert J. Manning. “We needed somebody very special to come to UMass Boston and clearly President Meehan and the search committee have found that person.”

Suárez-Orozco, an internationally-renowned educator and researcher whose work focuses on the study of mass migration, globalization and education, said he was honored to become the 9^th chancellor of UMass Boston, which was established in 1965 to make the University more accessible to the state’s urban population center.

“It is an extraordinary honor for me, an immigrant from Latin America, who came to this country and was given the extraordinary gift of higher education of the great public university system in the state of California,” said Suárez-Orozco. “I come before you with a promise that as the chancellor of University of Massachusetts Boston, I will endeavor to the best of my abilities to be faithful to the fundamental idea that in public education we find the tools for the flourishing of the youth, young men and women of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”

More about Marcelo Suárez-Orozco

Dr. Suárez-Orozco, 63, is the inaugural Wasserman Dean at the University of California Los Angeles, where he leads the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, which on his watch attained US News & World Report’s top ranking.

Dean Suárez-Orozco, who arrived in the U.S. speaking only his native Spanish, is a product of the California public higher education system, having attended a community college in the state and then earning his A.B., M.A., and Ph. D. (Anthropology) degrees at the University of California Berkeley.

Prior to his service at UCLA, Dean Suárez-Orozco – and his wife and academic partner, Carola Suárez-Orozco -- held academic positions at Harvard and at NYU. He is an internationally-renowned educator and researcher. His award-winning books, edited volumes and scholarly papers have had a global impact, leading to international service that includes his role as Special Advisor to the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and service on the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. During his tenure as the UCLA Wasserman Dean, Dr. Suárez-Orozco raised over $120 million toward the UCLA Campaign.

Dean Suárez-Orozco’s full biography and CV can be found at https://www.umassp.edu/boston-chancellor-search/finalist-biography.