Featured Story: Cambridge College President Deborah Jackson

  

In May 2011, Deborah C. Jackson became the fourth President of Cambridge College, bringing to the institution over 30 years of leadership expertise across a number of Boston’s leading institutions. Ms. Jackson assumed this role with a commitment to advance the mission of the College: to provide access to academically excellent, time-efficient and affordable higher education for adults for whom these opportunities may have been limited or denied.

Her commitment to the social justice imperative of higher education is evidenced by her efforts to advance the college’s ongoing commitment to diversity and its recognition as one of “America’s Top 100 Graduate Degree Producers” as noted by Diverse Issues in Higher Education Magazine. Cambridge College’s School of Management ranked third in awarding master’s in business/commerce degrees to African American students, higher than any other private, non-profit college in the nation. Cambridge College has been designated a Military Friendly School which helps U.S. veterans attend college.

Prior to joining Cambridge College, Ms. Jackson served for nearly a decade as CEO of the American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts, one of the nation’s largest Red Cross units. Prior to that experience, Ms. Jackson served as Vice President of the Boston Foundation where she managed its $50 million grant and initiatives program. She has also held the positions of Senior Vice President at Boston Children’s Hospital, and President and CEO of Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries, Inc

Throughout her career, Ms. Jackson has served and continues to serve on numerous commissions, task forces and boards including the Boston Green Ribbon Commission; the Mayor’s Task Force to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care; the “City to City” program focusing on national and global best practices for urban policies; the American Red Cross-National Diversity Advisory Council; Eastern Bank and the Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation. Ms. Jackson served for over 15 years on the board of the American Student Assistance Corporation, the nation’s first student loan guarantor agency; and has been on the boards of Roxbury Community College, Boston College Carroll School of Management Advisory Board, Northeastern University Corporation, Milton Academy and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. She also serves as Vice Chair on the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities in Massachusetts and is a board member of the New England Chapter of The National Association of Corporate Directors. In May of 2014 she received an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from Curry College.

Ms. Jackson has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award for Achievement in Management, Boston Magazine’s “100 Most Influential Women in Boston,” El Planeta Newspaper’s “100 Most Influential People for Latinos,” and she has been inducted into the Women’s Business Hall of Fame. She was a 2009 Barr Foundation Fellow; a Senior Fellow at Boston University’s Graduate School of Business/Institute for Non-profit Management and Leadership; and was a Fellow of the British-American Project of Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies.