Friday, November 17, 2017
Dr. Marybeth Gasman, a University of Pennsylvania professor whose specialty is higher education history with a focus on minority serving institutions, will be UMES’ winter commencement speaker Friday, Dec. 15.
Graduation exercises in the Hytche Athletic Center begin at 10 a.m. for some 271 degree candidates and their ticketed guests.
Gasman’s online biography lists her areas of expertise as Historically Black Colleges and Universities, racism, diversity and higher education, African American educational leadership, fundraising and philanthropy.
She is the Judy & Howard Berkowitz Professor of Education in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and also “holds secondary appointments in history, Africana Studies, and the School of Social Policy and Practice.”
Gasman is founding director of the Penn Center for Minority Serving Institutions, which her biography says “works to amplify the contributions, strengthen, and support MSIs and those scholars interested in them.”
She has written or edited 23 books and has had some 350 opinion articles published in major American newspapers and periodicals during her teaching career. Education Week lists her as one of the nation’s most influential education scholars.
Penn credits Gasman with raising $22 million to support her research as well as that of her students, mentees and minority serving institution partners. The Kellogg Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Mellon Foundation, Educational Testing Service, and the National Institutes for Health are among organizations that have provided her grant support.
She is a member of the board of trustees of Paul Quinn College, a private HBCU in Dallas.
