Dear Colleagues,
I write with great enthusiasm to share that Gwendelyn Rivera will be joining our divisional team as our Director of Equity Assessment and Evaluation. Gwendelyn was hired following a national search this spring. In her role, Gwendelyn will report to my position and will lead key assessment and evaluation initiatives for the Division of Student Affairs and Success and for Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Initiatives in support of ongoing equity innovation efforts. Gwendelyn will serve in a key analytical and advisory role to the Divisional Leadership Team, and lead data analysis for the units and programs in the division, with a focus on equity and student success. Her HSI work will focus on assessing enrollment, retention and related outcomes aligned with the grant project logic models.
Gwendelyn will be returning to the UC Santa Cruz community where she received her undergraduate degree in Psychology. Since then, she has earned her Master’s in Psychology from CSU Los Angeles and her PhD in Human Development Psychology from UC Los Angeles, where her dissertation was titled “Environmental or personal factors? What is needed to get high achieving Latino youth to successfully apply to four-year colleges?”. She brings wide professional experience in research and data analysis at large research institutions, most recently serving as Research Project Administrator at the University of Southern California, where she was responsible for a longitudinal, mixed-method evaluation study of a comprehensive college transition program aimed at first-generation and low-income college students. She also brings assessment and reporting experience from her role as a Research Analyst at Mount Saint Mary’s University, where she analyzed and reported on student and faculty data to produce university and national reports on university and student outcomes. Gwendelyn also worked at City University of New York – Hunter College and UCLA.
I would like to thank the search committee for the time and perspectives they brought to the recruitment. The committee was comprised of the following individuals from across our campus:
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Catherine Cooper, Emerita Professor of Psychology and Faculty Director, UCSC Educational Partnership Center
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Julian Fernald, Director, Institutional Research, Assessment, and Policy Studies
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Sam Foster, Managing Director, Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning
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Charis Herzon, Director, Hispanic Serving Institution Initiatives (Co-Chair)
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Lucy Rojas, Assistant Vice Chancellor & Chief of Staff (Co-Chair)
Gwendelyn will start her new position on July 19, 2021. She can be reached at riverag@ucsc.edu.
Please join me in welcoming Gwendelyn back to UC Santa Cruz.
Best,
Jennifer Baszile
Interim Vice Chancellor,
Division of Student Affairs and Success
