Dr. Susan Borrego assumed the position of Vice President for Student Affairs at CSU Monterey Bay in August 2005 after having served at the University of Arkansas, where she served as Assistant and then Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students for two years.
Dr. Borrego is a committed practitioner-scholar. She made a conscious decision to pursue an administrative appointment so she could engage collaborations with academics and champion the pedagogy of student affairs. Borrego’s research and professional areas of expertise include student affairs, diversity, high achievement programs, faculty-student affairs collaborations, service learning , leadership development, and community outreach. Much of her work has been facilitating relationships across a variety of constituencies in efforts to develop inclusive communities. Her doctoral research and continued scholarship explores issues of class and diversity. Her monograph, Class Matters: Beyond Access to Inclusion, was published in March 2003 by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
Dr. Borrego has a long record of leadership service and involvement in campus committees and community organizations. Her research on social class in higher education has catalyzed opportunities for consultation and collaboration. She is a consultant for the Irvine Campus Diversity Initiative project, an evaluator and consultant for a joint grant project between USC and the Department of Justice, and a research associate for an accreditation study with the Western Association of Senior Colleges (WASC). Borrego serves as a faculty member for the NASPA Minority Undergraduate Fellowship Program, and an Adjunct Associate Professor in higher education at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. She is an effective student advocate, committed to issues of social justice and leadership development.
In addition to her other accomplishments, Dr. Borrego, after completing her doctoral work in 2001, began to teach in the higher education graduate program at the University of Southern California where she was a finalist for the Socrates Teaching Award. As the director of the Caltech Y at California Institute of Technology during the 1990s, she twice provided transition leadership for the Office of Minority Student Affairs. Borrego then assumed the continuing role of Associate Dean for Minority Student affairs and developed Caltech’s first high achievement program for underrepresented students. Borrego began her career in admissions and recruitment. Broadly experienced in higher education, she also held positions in institutional advancement, public information, orientation, and student activities.
Dr. Borrego and her partner have two children—both in college.