Magdalena L. Barrera

Vice Provost for Faculty Success 

Phone: 408-924-2405
Email: magdalena.barrera@sjsu.edu

Biography

Dr. Magdalena L. Barrera is the Vice Provost for Faculty Success. In this role, she supports faculty through their professional development, enabling them to meet their individual goals as well as contribute to the collective mission of San José State. Dr. Barrera helps develop hiring strategies for tenure-line and lecturer faculty members, while supporting the provost in creating the broader faculty hiring plan for the Academic Affairs division. Critically, Dr. Barrera establishes the direction and format of training provided for new faculty recruits, hiring committees, retention, tenure, and promotion (RTP) committees, and range elevation committees. She works closely with the Assistant Vice Provost of Faculty Development, Senior Director for Faculty Affairs, Chief Diversity Officer, and other experts on campus to deliver programming to the committees that oversee the faculty hiring and RTP processes. She also develops partnerships with key campus offices to facilitate data-informed decision-making and a shared sense of collective leadership at SJSU. 

Prior to joining the Office of the Provost, Dr. Barrera served as department chair of Chicana and Chicano Studies; inaugural Director of the Ethnic Studies Collaborative in the College of Social Sciences; Faculty-in-Residence for Diversifying the Faculty in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and Faculty Fellow at the Chicanx/Latinx Student Success Center.

Dr. Barrera holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature and Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. She began her faculty career at SJSU in 2008, following a postdoctoral teaching fellowship in Stanford’s Introduction to the Humanities program.