For nearly a decade Tala Khudairi has been committed to establishing, transforming and leading successful interdisciplinary divisions in higher education. Recognized for her drive for excellence, her commitment to strategic collaboration and building a foundation upon common goals has resulted in an array of successes for 1) a multicultural, multinational, and diverse student base; 2) internally across all departments in the institution; 3) all academic and student affairs divisions (student enrollment and services, advising, website and marketing, registration, IT and library resources, institutional research); and 4) externally with educational institutions and industry partners.
She is currently the Dean of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) at Roxbury Community College, the largest minority-serving institution of higher education in New England. She has actively built the division to become a STEM center of excellence, developed, managed, assessed and evaluated programs, and increased the number of direct reports (full time and adjunct faculty members and technical and support staff) by 160%; generated academic and technical opportunities for more than 2,500 students, thereby increasing recruitment, retention and graduation rates by an additional 10%; and managing over $4M in budget and grants, and most recently integral in being awarded with $20.7M to establish a Life Sciences Institute.
Her passion is to create and facilitate opportunities for students and faculty to empower their lives through education and through synergistic partnerships with industry, universities, K-12 schools and the community. She has established and chaired the four Program Advisory Boards in her Division, and serve on several advisory boards for academic programs and state education initiatives. As a proud Iraqi immigrant, Arab-American- Muslim, she has been serving the Arab/Muslim community with her family all her life. Tala's family has participated and supported many Center for Arabic Culture (CAC) activities and events, including her children attending the Arabic School. For Tala, It was be an honor to serve on the Board of CAC, where its mission resonates with her own. Her desire is for continuous, preservation and promotion of our Arabic heritage and culture for our families and to the community at large and for sustainability and growth of organizations such as CAC.