Miguel Martinez-Saenz

Miguel Martinez-Saenz is an American academic administrator and philosopher who currently serves as the 19th President of St. Francis College.^[1] Prior to becoming the President of St. Francis, Martinez-Saenz served as Provost and Vice-President of academic affairs at Otterbein University.

Education[]

Martinez-Saenz earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Florida State University in 1993. He then attended the University of South Florida, where he obtained a Master of Arts in 1998 and a Ph.D in 2001.

Career[]

Martinez-Saenz was an Assistant Professor of philosophy at Wittenberg University in 2001. After earning tenure, he was named Assistant Provost for first-year students and Associate Provost for academic affairs. Martinez-Saenz then moved to Wittenberg University, where he was Dean and Associate Provost for student success at St. Cloud State University in 2011. In 2014, Martinez-Saenz became the Provost and Vice-President for academic affairs at Otterbein University. In 2017, he was named president of St. Francis College.^[2] In 2019, Martinez-Saenz was named a Board of Trustee member with the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities (CICU).^[3] In 2020, Martinez-Saenz was appointed to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Committee on Women's Athletics.^[4] A deliberate and devoted writer and speaker, Martinez-Saenz has been published in a number of academic journals and written several columns and editorials for Ohio newspapers, the Huffington Post and The Hill.^[5]

Otterbein University[]

As Provost, Martinez-Saenz, led a number of efforts especially in the context of internationalization that included a three-year global arts initiative, funded in part by the National Endowment of the Arts.^[6] He also helped lay the foundation and developed partnerships with universities in South Africa, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Malaysia. Of significance, Martinez-Saenz was an administrative Fulbright Scholar (March 2016) through the Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Program.^[7]

In 2015, while at Otterbein University a plan to move Otterbein to a three-credit model that would increase faculty teaching load by one course per academic year without additional compensation was proposed. In the spring of 2016, the University Senate made up of faculty, students, and administrators rejected the plan, yet by the fall it was approved by the Otterbein Board of Trustees, which overruled the Senate, to address the university's fiscal deficit.^[8]

Personal[]

Outside the university setting his experience has been varied and diverse. Martinez-Saenz has worked with his spouse, tutoring teens at or below the poverty-line, has conducted philosophy workshops in juvenile detention centers,^[9] and has accompanied student groups to build houses in rural communities in Nicaragua as part of trips organized by Bridges to Community. Martinez-Saenz is Cuban-American and lives in Brooklyn Heights with his wife and two children.^[10]

References[]