03/28/2024
By Kerry Donohoe
As the Associate Dean of Academic Services, Tara will continue to oversee the Centers for Learning, Advising and Student Success (CLASS), a centrally coordinated student academic success center that provides advising, tutoring, success coaching and a wide range of academic support services to students. The Centers for Learning offers these services on both North and South campuses, in the residence halls and has professional advisors housed both centrally and within the academic colleges. CLASS also coordinates special programs for students in academic difficulty and exploratory students, manages our campus certified tutoring program and two testing centers. In this role, Tara works closely with the undergraduate associate deans and many campus partners to support our students.
Tara brings a wealth of experience in leading integrated student service centers and student success teams as well as with academic advising. Prior to taking on this role, Tara served for nine years as the first Director and then Executive Director of the Solution Center - our “one stop” for supporting students’ financial aid, registration and billing needs while partnering with other units on campus. In addition, prior to her work at UML, Tara led student success teams at both Granite State College and DeVry University, both of which combined advising with one-stop support. These collective experiences center students in our work as we strive to support them holistically. Tara also brings a wealth of experience leading teams with a CRM and utilizing technology to support both the effectiveness and efficiency of our work.
As a current member of our Academic Services Leadership Team, Tara has been deeply engaged with aligning our student success work with the campus strategic plan and brings our collaborative team approach to our collective campus efforts. I am very appreciative of her willingness to step into the interim role and I am thrilled that she will continue to serve in this capacity. Tara has a clear vision for what excellence in student support looks like and is a collaborative, data driven strategic leader. I am confident with Tara at the helm, and with the incredibly talented and experienced CLASS team, that our future looks bright.
Tara is also a UML alum and proud River Hawk! Please join me in congratulating Tara as she takes on this role.