Cambridge College President Deborah Jackson to Receive Honorary Degree

Curry College will award an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to Deborah Jackson, President of Cambridge College, during the Curry College 2014 Commencement exercises on May 18, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. at the D. Forbes Will Athletic Complex on the Milton campus.

Deborah C. Jackson is a recognized and accomplished leader in both the non-profit and for-profit arenas, both locally and nationally.  Before being named President of Cambridge College, Ms. Jackson served nearly a decade as the CEO of the American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts, one of the nation's largest Red Cross units.  Prior to that, she served as Vice President of the Boston Foundation where she managed its $50 million grant and initiatives program. 

Much of Ms. Jackson's career has been spent in the healthcare sector where she served as Senior Vice President at Boston Children's Hospital.  Previously, she spent nearly a decade early in her career at Abt Associates, one of the country's largest for-profit research and consulting firms.  Ms. Jackson has been recognized for exemplary leadership skills and solution driven expertise on local, national and global issues involving public policy, research, workforce development, education, healthcare, urban policy and community services.

Throughout her career, Ms. Jackson has been actively engaged in a wide range of civic activities.  Her leadership has been sought for appointments to numerous commissions and boards.  She was recently named to Mayor Marty Walsh's 2014 Transition committee, and serves on the board of directors of Eastern Bank and Eastern Bank Charitable Foundation, Boston's Green Ribbon Commission, the Advisory Board for IDEAS Boston, and the National Diversity Advisory Council for the National American Red Cross and "City to City", a program that focuses on examining national and global best practices for urban policies. Ms. Jackson served for more than 15 years on the board of the American Student Assistance Corporation, the nation's first student loan guarantor agency; and has previously served on the boards of Roxbury Community College, Boston College Carroll School of Management Advisory Board, Northeastern University Corporation, Milton Academy, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and the Group Insurance Commission. She is a member of the Massachusetts Women's Forum, a chapter of the International Women's Forum, an organization established to recognize and cultivate the contributions of women leaders around the world.

Ms. Jackson is the recipient of numerous awards including the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Pinnacle Award for Achievement in Management, Boston Magazine's "100 Most Influential Women in Boston," and El Planeta Newspaper's "100 Most Influential People for Latinos."   She was inducted into the Sigma Beta Delta Honor Society for Business Management, and the Women's Business Hall of Fame.   Ms. Jackson was a 2009 Barr Foundation Fellow; a Senior Fellow at Boston University's Graduate School of Business/Institute for Non-profit Management and Leadership; and was a Fellow of the British-American Project of Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies.  

Ms. Jackson attended undergraduate school at Hampton Institute and completed her undergraduate degree at Northeastern University.  She also attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Urban Studies and Planning for graduate studies, and was a fellow at Harvard University's Advanced Leadership Program.