Maria Grandone

Maria brings with her over 15 years of higher education leadership experience. Over the course of her professional career, she has provided leadership, galvanized campus resources, led academic advising, coached professional staff, and developed numerous student success programs including the development of programs serving an array of diverse socio-economic communities across several institutions. Maria is the Director of Undergraduate Programs at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California Irvine, where she is providing she provided strategic direction, and management on undergraduate programs and student engagement. Prior, she served as the Director of the University Advisement Center at California State University (CSU), Dominguez Hills, where she provided vision, strategic direction, and management on matters of policy and procedure related to academic advising, student success, and improving student persistence and graduation rates. She collaborated and supported university-wide efforts to streamline strategic direction, while managing a team of 15 plus full-time professionals, 30 peer coaches, 2 graduate interns, and 18 faculty fellows, and offering approximately 300 yearly programs and outreach efforts related to holistic academic counseling/advising and student success programs for all undergraduate students. Prior to joining CSU Dominguez Hills, Maria held leadership positions at West Coast University, Ontario, California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), Loyola Marymount University (LMU), University of La Verne, and Concordia University, Irvine. She is also a Doctor of Philosophy in Curriculum and Instruction - Adult Education (Kansas State University), has her Master of Science in Foundations in Adult, Occupational and Continuing Education (Kansas State University), and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology (Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico-Ponce, PR).