Martha Barry McKenna is University Professor and Professor Emerita. She has been director of Lesley University's Creativity Commons, where she provided creative leadership in the arts and innovation in teaching and learning across the university. She has also been director of the Graduate School of Education's Center for Advanced Professional Studies (CAPS).
Previously, she held the post of Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Dean of the Division of Liberal Studies and Adult Learning, and Director of the Adult Baccalaureate Program. She began her career as a high school teacher of music and the arts.
A Fulbright Scholar Specialist, Martha served as a Visiting Scholar at the American University of Paris. She sits on various boards and committees of organizations that include the Arts Education Partnership, Boston Public Schools Arts Expansion Initiative, Arts/Learning, VSA of Massachusetts, the Worcester Art Museum and Cambridge Community Foundation. In fall of 2018, she was appointed by the Cambridge Mayor's Office to the Mayor's Arts Task Force.
Education
BA, Music History and Theory, Emmanuel College
Music History and Voice, Royal Academy of Music, London
American and European Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
MA, Vocal Music Education, Ed.M., Administration and Supervision of Music and the Arts;
Ed.D., Music, the Arts, and Humanities, Teachers College Columbia University, New York.
