Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship (ACES)

Marisol Morales

Inducted in
2024

American Council on Education

Executive Director of Carnegie Elective Classifications and Assistant Vice President

https://carnegieclassifications.acenet.edu/staff/dr-marisol-morales/

Photo of Marisol Morales

Biographical Abstracts

Dr. Marisol Morales is the Executive Director of the Carnegie Elective Classifications and Assistant Vice President at the  American Council on Education. In this role she provides conceptual leadership and  operational oversight to the elective classifications’ work in the United States, Australia,  and Canada. This includes the collaborative development of and responsibility for all  initiatives, oversight, and facilitation of relevant national and international advisory  committees, conceptualizing and implementing extensive data archives as well as  developing and enacting a shared vision regarding access to and use of the knowledge  produced by the Carnegie Elective Classifications to beneficially guide research, policy,  and practice.

Prior to this role, she was the Vice President for Network Leadership at Campus Compact,  from 2018-2022. Morales was the founding Director of the Office of Civic and Community  Engagement at the University of La Verne from 2013-2018 and the Associate Director of the Steans Center for Community-based Service Learning and Community Service Studies at  DePaul University from 2005-2013. In 2020, she was appointed as a Visiting Assistant  Professor of Community-Engaged Scholarship at the University of Central Florida. Since  2021 she has been an adjunct faculty in the ENLACE Higher Education Master’s program at  Northeastern Illinois University teaching Latino Higher Education Policy. Morales sits on the editorial board of the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning. Her previous board service includes serving on the editorial advisory board of Liberal Education, a publication of the Association of American Colleges and on the board of the International  Association for Research on Service Learning and Community Engagement (IARSLCE). She currently serves as the co-chair of the education committee of the Puerto Rican Agenda of Chicago and on the Illinois Latino Legislative Caucus Foundation as the Board Designee for 4th District Representative Lilian Jimenez. She is currently an 2024-2025 ACE Fellow and an Minority Serving Institution (MSI) Aspiring Leaders program fellow with the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at Rutgers New Brunswick.

Morales holds a BA in Latin American/Latino Studies and a MS/MS in International Public  Service Management both from DePaul University. She earned her Ed.D in Organizational  Leadership at the University of La Verne in 2020. Her dissertation focused on the  community engagement experiences of Latinx students at a Hispanic Serving Institution.  Morales was born and raised in Chicago with ancestral roots in Puerto Rico. 

Areas of Expertise

  • Hispanic serving institutions and community engagement
  • Carnegie Elective Classifications
  • Diversity, equity, inclusion, justice
  • Community organizing
  • Puerto Rican human rights