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CCRI Hall of Fame

  1. CCRI
  2. CCRI Hall of Fame
  3. Members
  4. 1996 Hall of Fame inductee - Eleanor M. McMahon

1996 Hall of Fame inductee - Eleanor M. McMahon

Eleanor M. McMahon

“I am proud of my past association with the Community College of Rhode Island and see it as one of the most outstanding institutions of its kind in the United States. The quality of CCRI is reflected in a variety of indicators, including its articulation-transfer program which is one of the most effective in the country, its high minority enrollment and graduation rates, the range and recognized quality of its programs including the extraordinarily effective tech-prep program conducted in cooperation with the great majority of Rhode Island high schools, its recently initiated Baccalaureate Bound partnership with more than 74 institutions and the job placement and compensation record of its graduates. CCRI is a credit to the nationally recognized leadership of its president, Edward Liston, to the quality and commitment of its faculty and staff, to its highly effective process of participatory management, and to the community of commitment and quality which it has created and which so aptly reflects its designations as the “Community College of Rhode Island.”

Eleanor M. McMahon was one of the truly outstanding educational leaders in Rhode Island. As the state’s first commissioner of higher education (1982-1989), past president of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges and past chair of the New England Board Higher Education, McMahon was a strong advocate of the Community College of Rhode Island and its efforts to make it possible for greater numbers of Rhode Islanders to pursue postsecondary education. She devoted her life to education and has served as a classroom teacher in the Pawtucket School Department, director and assistant professor of Elementary Education at Salve Regina University and provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Rhode Island College. She also was Brown University’s distinguished visiting professor at the A. Alfred Taubman Center of the Public Policy and American Institutions.

McMahon earned a bachelor’s degree from the College of St. Elizabeth, a master’s degree from Brown University, and a doctorate in Education from Harvard University.