Claudia Martinez, Director of the Office of Education Partnerships

May 2, 2012

I regret to  inform the campus that Claudia Martinez, Director of the Office of Education Partnerships, has accepted a job at Office of the President effective June 15, 2012.  Mario Castellanos, the current Director of the MESA program at UC Santa Barbara, has agreed to fill in for Claudia as Interim Director of OEP while a search is conducted. A search committee is currently being assembled.

A native of Los Angeles, Claudia received her Bachelor's of Arts Degree in Law and Social Policy from UC Berkeley and received a Master's Degree in Public Policy (M.P.P.) from UC Berkeley's Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP).  Claudia came to UCSB in 2001 when she was hired as the Project Director for UCSB's ENLACE y Avance (ENgaging LAtino Communities for Education) project, an initiative of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and housed within the Chicano Studies Institute.  Prior to coming to UCSB, she worked for 4 years at UC Merced where she was one of that campus’ founding staff members and where she worked primarily in the development of outreach and educational partnerships for UCM in the San Joaquin Valley, becoming Interim Director of Academic Programs in 2000. Prior to working for the University of California, Claudia established a long record of work in the public policy and civil rights arena in positions with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO), and the CA Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF).

Claudia has served as Director of the Office of Education Partnerships since 2006 (first as Interim and then as Director in January 2009).  In that capacity she has provided support and leadership for the integration and coordination for several of the campus' P-20 academic preparation initiatives that serves UCSB’s longstanding mission to increase college-going rates among our local K-12 student population.  Some of the programs that Claudia has provided oversight for include the Mathematics, Science and Engineering Achievement (MESA), Santa Barbara Pathways, American Indian Scholars, Summer Algebra Academies, Transcript Evaluation Service, as well as several school-site programs designed to foster parent involvement in student success.  She also managed the Faculty Outreach Grants program which to date has provide over $2.5 million to UCSB faculty to conduct outreach in our local schools. She will definitely leave behind a legacy of outstanding service to UC Santa Barbara and the community in providing opportunities for students to pursue collegiate degrees.

We all wish Claudia well in this next journey in her career, and we thank her for all she has done for UC Santa Barbara and the community while she has been here.