Suzanne Rivera Will Be the First Woman to Lead Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota

Suzanne Rivera was named the 17th president of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. When she begins her new job this summer, Dr. Rivera will be the first woman president and first Latinx president in Macalester College’s history.

Macalester college is a highly-rated liberal arts college that enrolls nearly 2,200 undergraduate students, according to the most recent data supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up 60 percent of the student body.

In a statement on the occasion her appointment was announced, Dr. Rivera said that “when we talk about a college like Macalester having an impact in the world, it’s not only what the students who leave a place like this can do when they enter the workforce, but it’s also in that personal transformational power, to take someone who started with one set of circumstances and open up for them the possibility of completely different circumstances. That’s really powerful stuff. It’s very profound. And I look forward to helping to write Macalester’s next chapter.”

Dr. Rivera has been serving as vice president for research and technology management at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Prior to her time at CWRU, Dr. Rivera spent seven years at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center working both in the Office of the Dean and Provost and in research leadership roles. Earlier in her career, Dr. Rivera served in the Office of Research Administration at the University of California, Irvine.

A graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she majored in American civilization, Dr. Rivera earned a master of social welfare degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in public affairs from the University of Texas at Dallas.