Sarah MacDonald: Assistant Dean

Assistant Dean, Outreach & Engagement

I came to O&E in July of 2007; prior to that I worked for the Graduate College and the Writing Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I have a master's degree in Writing & Rhetoric, and a master's in Adult and Human Resource Education, both from the University of Illinois. I'm also in the final stretch of completing a PhD here at JMU in Assessment & Measurement, with a dissertation that focuses on part-time graduate students and their sense of belonging to the university. Here at O&E, I oversee our undergraduate programs, online graduate programs, and O&E's contributions to university accreditation and assessment. I love what we do because learning never stops. Our world is changing rapidly, and requires us all to continuously learn new skills, ideas, and strategies - and providing access to programs that do that for people who once thought that higher education wasn't for them is deeply powerful and fulfilling.