Dr. Bernice Bass de Martínez has a distinguished career in higher education. Currently she is at California State University in Sacramento, working on special initiatives, community building, and external funding as well as holding an appointment to the University’s Foundation Board and chairing the Board's Governance Committee.  Having worked in many capacities in the field of education, including her years at California State University in Sacramento, she has served more than 30 years in a various administrative roles in higher education institutions around the nation, including provost and vice president for academic affairs, multiple deanships, and special assistant to the president.  

Additionally, she has more than 16 years of faculty experience teaching at both graduate and undergraduate levels. Of particular note is her service as department chair specializing in turn around management - four years at Fresno State chairing the Department of Teacher Education and three years at Sacramento State as chair of the Department of Special Education, Rehabilitation, School Psychology and Deaf Studies, and more recently six years as Chair of Foreign Languages.

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Her passions include a strong commitment to building bridges of collaboration and cooperation; a belief that quality education can be delivered in an equitable way; and a commitment to identification, development, education, and advancement of the disenfranchised with particular emphasis on women and persons of color. 

These passions have influenced her teaching and research as well as her administrative work and personal life. Examples include service as a k – 12 bilingual classroom teacher; Women of Color Research Collaborative (WoCRC ), a multi-campus research collective of women; Spanish for Health Care Professionals, a certificate program; and Community Revitalization, Economic Advancement through Entertainment (CREAtE), a community arts project.

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Additionally, her career work has been complemented with International Affairs having served projects in Latin America (Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador), Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, and Senegal) and the Caribbean (Jamaica and Haiti).  She has worked in the New Mexico Department of Education and U.S. Department of Education.  Her experiences also include association service like being selected as a Senior Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities and Interim President and CEO for Leadership America, both in the Washington, D.C. area. 

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She has been engaged with policy development, refinement, and implementation; staff and faculty development, selection, and evaluation; consensus building and “turn around” management; program and curricular assessment and evaluation; and resource management and development.

               

In terms of community service, Dr. Bass de Martínez held a Governor’s appointment to the California Board for Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians and served as the Board’s vice president; a City Council appointment to the Elk Grove Multicultural Committee; and currently serves on the Sacramento Martin Luther King Dinner Celebration Committee.

From 2000 through 2008 she served on the Board of Leadership America, chairing the Board of Directors in 2006; from 1998 to 2008 she served on the American Council on Education’s Office of Women in Higher Education’s Network Executive Board and is now an emeritus member; from 2005 to 2011 was a member of the Educational Policy Committee of the National Foundation for Women Legislators and served on the U.S. Advisory Board of the Euro-American Women’s Council from 2004 to 2009.  She is the Founding Chair of the William V. S. Tubman University (Harper, Liberia) Foundation Board; a member of the Xi Gamma Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the oldest African American Sorority in the world with a commitment of service to all mankind.

 

Dr. Bass de Martínez holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Chemistry as well as a master’s degree in education both earned at the University of Northern Colorado and a Ph.D. from the University of Florida in curriculum and instruction.  In May of 2016 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree, Honoris causa by William VS Tubman University (Harper, Maryland County, Liberia) for exemplary services in social development and outstanding commitment to humanity across the globe.  She is a frequent speaker at regional and national events and has a long list of publications and presentations.

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