Lori E. Ciccomascolo is a professor in the School of Education and Associate Vice President of Student Affairs and Student Success at the University of Rhode Island. She served as the former dean of URI’s Alan Shawn Feinstein College of Education and Professional Studies where she played a key role in the creation and transition of and strategic planning for the college, creating a more interconnected approach to curriculum, diversity, global partnerships, and research. Using her faculty and administrative experience, Dr. Ciccomascolo currently works on student success initiatives between the Divisions of Student Affairs and Academic Affairs and is one of the coordinators of URI's “Rhody First” First Generation Student program that includes students majoring in Education. Dr. Ciccomascolo collaborates with fellow School of Education faculty on research in the areas of health and education and best practices in diversity, leadership, and mentoring. A strong advocate for social justice, Dr. Ciccomascolo received the 2015 URI Multicultural Administrative Diversity Award given to an administrator for cultivating and sustaining a campus that embraces and respects diversity. In addition to her research and teaching, Dr. Ciccomascolo is a member of the URI team partnering with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ Transformation Cluster Initiative in sharing and analyzing data across other land-grant institutions to help eliminate the achievement gap and increase degree persistence and completion.