Genaro M. Padilla

Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Associate Professor of English
University of California-Berkeley
Ph.D. in English
University of Washingon

As Vice Chancellor, Dr. Padilla has Co-Chaired the Faculty Senate Commission on Undergraduate Education that is leading to a renewed emphasis on providing an inquiry-based undergraduate experience. He oversaw the study of The First Year Experience Task Force that recommended greater concentration on academic and computing resources in residential housing. He provided leadership in fundraising over $42,000,000 in scholarships for low-income, first generation college students. He is currently charged with coordinating K-12 partnerships with the result that students who participated in academic outreach programs were admitted to Berkeley at a rate of 49% compared to an overall rate of 25%.

As the Vice Chancellor overseeing admissions at Berkeley, he has been asked to speak on numerous occasions about the challenge of admissions in a post-affirmative action environment (Proposition 209 in California) and he provides leadership to broadening the criteria by which students are admitted from a wide range of academic, social, and economic backgrounds. He remains committed to access and diversity within the student body at Berkeley.

He is the author of My History, Not Yours: The Formation of Mexican American Autobiography (1993), editor of The Stories of Fray Angelico Chavez (1987) and has co-edited numerous other books including The Recovery of the U.S. Hispanic Literary Tradition (1993), Nuevomexicano Cultural Legacy: Forms, Agencies, and Discourse (2004), and Power, Race and Gender in Academe: Strangers in the Tower (2005). Some of his influential articles include “The Literature of the Spanish Borderland,” “The Catholic Church in Chicano Literature,” “The Mexican Immigrant as *: The (de)Formation of Mexican Immigrant Life Story,” “Myth and Comparative Cultural Nationalism: The Ideological Uses of Aztlan,” “Anthony Quinn's Autobiography: The Original Sin,” “The Recovery of 19th Century Chicano Autobiography,” “Imprisoned Narrative? Or Lies, Secrets and Silence in New Mexico Women's Autobiography.”

W. Charles Read

Dean, School of Education
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ph.D. in Linguistics and Education, Harvard University

When Charles Read was named the seventh dean of the UW-Madison School of Education in 1995, he began a new stage in a career devoted to education. A former high school English teacher, Read earned a master of arts in teaching and a Ph.D. in linguistics and education from Harvard University.

Read joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1970 as a professor of English and linguistics. He is the author of three books and numerous articles, and his research on linguistics and literacy has been widely cited and published. At UW-Madison, he has served as chair of the linguistics department and as associate dean and interim dean of the Graduate School.

As Dean of the School of Education, Read oversees the third largest college on campus. The school is composed of eight departments and enrolls nearly 2,500 undergraduate students each year. About half of the undergraduates are pursuing teacher preparation programs; the rest are in art, dance, rehabilitation psychology, and exercise science.

The School of Education also enrolls more than 1,200 graduate students each year. Graduate students play key roles in many of the innovative research projects conducted at the school. Deans across the country rank six of the school's graduate programs among the top three in their fields nationally (U.S. News).

During Read's tenure as Dean, the School of Education has revised all of its teacher education programs, basing certification on performance and increasing field experiences; created a model program of research-doctoral preparation, with a grant from the Spencer Foundation; increased its gift support and its endowment substantially; expanded its influential research activity, with significantly increased Federal support; launched its first distance-education masters program; established the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Post-secondary Education; improved its relations with the state and the community; attracted a more diverse array of faculty and graduate students; and maintained its position as one of the finest schools of education in the country.