Marisol Morales, Ed.D., NIU’s new Vice President of Outreach, Engagement and Regional Development, doesn’t just champion community engagement. She has lived it from many different perspectives – as a student, as a community partner, and as a university adjunct faculty member and administrator.
During her decades of experience working on community-university partnerships, Vice President Morales has developed a philosophy of community engagement that centers community knowledge and collective responsibility. Here at NIU, she hopes to leverage NIU’s history of community engagement to strengthen experiential learning for NIU students, support local communities and raise NIU’s national reputation as a community-engaged institution.
Before coming to NIU, Morales served as executive director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications and assistant vice president at the American Council on Education (ACE), leading the Carnegie Elective Classifications across the United States, Australia, Canada and Thailand. Earlier in her career, she served as vice president for Network Leadership at Campus Compact, founding director of the Office of Civic and Community Engagement at the University of La Verne, and associate director of the Steans Center for Community-Based Service Learning and Community Service Studies at DePaul University. She teaches a course on Latino higher education policy at Northeastern Illinois University’s ENLACE program and serves on several editorial and foundation boards. Born and raised in Chicago with ancestral roots in Puerto Rico, Morales earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from DePaul University and a Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership from the University of La Verne.
Morales is excited to approach her new role through a collaborative lens, co-creating a vision of community engagement along with community partners and the many faculty and staff who are already doing this powerful work across NIU. She brings to this collaboration a vision of community engagement that centers the experiences of NIU students and partners.
Read the full story in NIU Today to learn more about Dr. Morales.
