Staff
Lynn Pasquerella
President, AAC&U
Lynn Pasquerella was appointed president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities in 2016, after serving as the eighteenth president of Mount Holyoke College. She has held positions as Provost at the University of Hartford and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Rhode Island, where she taught for more than two decades. A philosopher whose work has combined teaching and scholarship with local and global engagement, Pasquerella has written extensively on medical ethics, metaphysics, public policy, and the philosophy of law. Her most recent book, What We Value: Public Health, Social Justice, and Educating for Democracy, examines the role of higher education in addressing some of the most pressing contemporary issues at the intersection of ethics, law, and public policy.
Pasquerella is immediate past president of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and the host of Northeast Public Radio’s The Academic Minute. She is a graduate of Quinebaug Valley Community College, Mount Holyoke College, and Brown University. Her awards and honors include receiving the William Rogers Alumni Award and the Horace Mann Medal from Brown University; the STAR Scholars Network North Star Lifetime Achievement Award; Mary Baldwin University’s Algernon Sydney Sullivan Service to Humanity Award; Quinebaug Valley Community College Champions Award; and the Mount Holyoke Alumni Association Elizabeth Tophan Kennan Award. Pasquerella holds honorary degrees from Elizabethtown College, Bishop’s University, the University of South Florida, the University of Hartford, the University of Rhode Island, Concordia College, Mount Holyoke College, and Bay Path University and was named by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education as one of America’s top 35 women leaders. She serves on the boards of the Lingnan Foundation, the National Trust for the Humanities, the Olin College of Engineering, and Handshake.
View Lynn Pasquerella's curriculum vitae (PDF).
Areas of Expertise
- Advocacy for Liberal Education
- Access to Excellence in Higher Education
- Civic Engagement
- Strategic Planning
- Assessment and Accreditation