Founded in 1952 in Orangeburg, N.Y., Dominican University was opened by the Dominican Sisters of Blauvelt, an order of Catholic nuns. On July 15, 2024, it named Manuel Martinez as president, which was a breakthrough in several ways. Martinez is the first lay person and Latino to be named president.
Who is Manuel Martinez?
Martinez has the right background to serve as Dominican University’s president. He spent 18 years in mostly administrative capacities at Ohio Dominican University in Columbus, Ohio, including serving as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Undergraduate Studies. He believes this experience “imbued him with a passion for the Dominican mission as it expresses itself through institutions.”
Martinez points out that both universities “express the Dominican concern for contemplation, study and sharing of this truth through their thoughtfully-crafted curriculum.” Dominican University’s mission exudes a strong emphasis on service, including having students serve at a food pantry on campus, performing midnight runs to feed those in need in New York City and building homes for Habitat for Humanity on spring break.
Moreover, Martinez, who is 59 years old, hails from a varied educational and business background. Born in Havana, Cuba, he moved to Miami at age 6 with his family. He graduated from the University of Miami as a business management major, and his first job was in corporate purchasing at Knight-Ridder, the third largest newspaper publisher in the U.S.; he then worked as a sales representative for Ingersoll-Rand. He took those jobs out of economic necessity.
At age 33, he switched to academia, his childhood dream, based on his love of literature. He taught English at the University of d’Angers in France and Spanish language and literature at Denison University in Granville, Ohio, for two years.
As college president, Martinez says that now he can decide to make things happen quickly. “As vice-president, there was always a line above me that was in charge. Now I have free rein to make things happen; that’s the difference.” He also felt that his business and faculty experience prepared him to serve as a university president.
Every college president is guided by a clear educational philosophy. Asked what drives him, Martinez replies, “Pay it forward. I know what it’s like to be a first-generation college student, and having to compromise what I wanted to study based on financial necessity. My goal is to help people make good choices, and that will influence how we craft our curriculum.”
“It’s all about preparing students to be in the workforce,” he concludes.
Dominican University: Preparing Diverse Students to Serve Society
Despite several Dominican sisters sitting on the board of Dominican University, there’s no religious affiliation required of any students. While some religious classes are offered, students aren’t required to take them. This approach makes Dominican University comparable to Fordham University in the Bronx, a Jesuit university, or St. John’s University in Queens, a Catholic university.
A total of 1,378 students attends Dominican University, which includes 284 graduate students. Its most popular undergraduate majors are nursing, business management and criminal justice, and on the graduate level, family nurse practitioner, physical therapy and occupational therapy prevail.
He sees nursing and occupational therapy as part of the mission of the Dominican sisters to help society while enabling students to succeed via education.
Its student body is highly diverse and multi-cultural, consisting of 36% Latinos, 27% Whites, 15% Blacks and 6% Asians, with the remainder not reporting their ethnicity.
Nearly 90% of its students hail from local states, since 71% are from New York and 17% from New Jersey, but it also attracts students from 21 countries outside of the U.S. as of 2023-2024. And it’s more than a commuter college, since 51% of its students live on campus in residential halls.
Remarkably, 100% of its undergraduates receive financial aid via a combination of institutional, federal and/or state funding. Martinez points out, “Dominican University believes all students deserve an affordable education and it is very supportive and helpful in educating students and their families about the different forms of financial aid.”
In fact, the average undergraduate student receives 90% of their financial aid in grants and scholarships, 5% in loans, and 5% via a payment plan or one-time payment. The average financial package is $26,055, and students can also take advantage of its interest-free payment plans to help bridge some of the financial gap.
Located in Rockland County, it is a mere 17 miles via the George Washington Bridge into New York City, which allows many students to participate in business internships, sporting events or Broadway plays. Martinez explains that transportation to New York City from Rockland County can be expensive and time-consuming, so he’s exploring ways to expedite that trip into the country’s most complex metropolis.
In his first few months of being president at Dominican University, Martinez is still familiarizing himself with the culture of its campus. He’s been meeting with students as well as the college’s local community.
Asked about Dominican University’s role in preparing students for the job market, Martinez replies that “it’s a fine balancing act between conserving what we do and being innovative.” He adds that with AI (Artificial Intelligence) transforming jobs quickly, “it’s short-sighted for people to just focus on their first job out of college, when who knows if that job and skill that got you there will be valid in five years.”
When Martinez is asked about the specific needs of Latino students at Dominican University, he responds that the question isn’t really applicable because all students face the same issues, regardless of ethnic background. “All groups are working against headwinds, in terms of losses from the pandemic, the rise of technology, mental health issues,” he says.
Mission and Vision for the Future
One of his goals is to ensure that Dominican University enables students to keep pace with “the accelerating rate of change for the technologically advanced society.” He’s also considering introducing digital badges and establishing new partnerships with businesses to further workforce development.
Dominican University has flown under the radar screen and is not well-known outside its local area. A year from today, Martinez expects to see Dominican University become better known for its student accomplishments. He says it is sustaining a comprehensive and targeted social media plan aimed at 18-year-olds “so the right message reaches people at the right time.”
Throughout the interview, what comes across from Martinez is his genuine enthusiasm for his new role as president of Dominican University. Why is he so fired up? Martinez replies that he didn’t start teaching until he was 33 years old, after being in the business world for over a decade. He describes himself as a “convert” to the mission of higher education; hence, he feels the “zeal of the converted” for the essential task of “educating people for the good of our country and themselves”.
