Dear MDC family,
I write to you today as we begin 2021 and the start of the Spring semester – both mark moments of joy and are full of promise and optimism for the future. During this extraordinary time, we continue to find new ways to live our mission, educate our students, and advance our work by making strategic investments in continuing to support outstanding educational experiences while providing students with as much choice and flexibility as possible.
The Spring semester is made possible in large part because of the tremendous amount of work that many of you put into developing protocols and preparing our campuses for a successful and safe semester. Thank you to the many faculty and staff who have worked tirelessly to get us ready.
I am confident in each and every member of our community and that we will all do our part to protect our collective health and safety. MDC is a special place because of you and our unity, collaboration, and collegiality. I am so grateful for your continued creativity, flexibility, and grace as we take on these challenges together. To realize our goals for a healthy spring term, we must persist in sharing the responsibility of caring for each other. The COVID-19 college safety protocols that we currently have in place will remain as we move into this semester. This includes mask wearing, social distancing, and temperature checks when you come to any of our MDC campuses or centers.
We will continue to focus on enrollment especially for the spring semester by expanding our mini-terms offerings to ensure we are meeting the needs of our community. This is of paramount importance as we begin to navigate a historic period of economic recovery. It requires us to continue to build upon academic and workforce pathways that provide economic mobility for students.
Building the Vision for Tomorrow
In the coming weeks, I am planning to host a series of forums to listen to your aspirations and ideas. Our success for the future is setting a vision of tomorrow’s MDC, prepared to solve the challenges of the future. Each one of you has unique insights that are critically important in charting a course of success through the opportunities we will have to work through together. The basic building blocks of all colleges are the same: people, programs, and community. What will differentiate our vision is the way that we put them together and generate a collective vision for the future.
As many of you know, Dr. Lenore Rodicio is joining the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program as a senior fellow. We are incredibly grateful for Dr. Rodicio's service as Provost. Continuing that momentum and to ensure our next Provost is an inspiring leader with a strong commitment to the highest standards of teaching and learning excellence, I am proud to announce the appointment of Dr. Malou Harrison as our new Provost.
Dr. Harrison is a well-respected leader that has made many influential contributions to MDC. She has a long and rich history with the College and has served in many leadership roles – most recently as the president of the North Campus where she guided the campus to new levels of excellence.
In my experience working with Dr. Harrison, what sets her apart, beyond her keen intellect, her integrity, and her skills as a consensus builder, is her exceptional commitment to evidence-based practices that inform our student success.
Please join me in congratulating Provost Harrison. To ensure continuity, I have appointed Fermin Vazquez as interim campus president. Mr. Vazquez is a seasoned leader and has played an integral role on the leadership team at the North Campus.
I am looking forward to working together with you as we carry out our mission and change lives. I wish you a successful semester and a Happy New Year.
Be safe and well,
Madeline Pumariega
President
Miami Dade College | 
