Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives
Marcelle Haddix serves as Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives. In this capacity, she partners with Vice Chancellor, Provost and Chief Academic Officer Gretchen Ritter and others to connect Academic Affairs with the campus and surrounding community. She is the primary liaison to the University Senate and oversees the First Year Seminar and University-wide arts and humanities affiliates and programs. Haddix is a Dean’s Professor of Literacy, Race and Justice. She was an inaugural co-director of the Lender Center for Social Justice and facilitates literacy programs for adolescent and adult communities in Syracuse.
Haddix began her career at Syracuse University in 2008. She is distinguished dean’s professor of literacy, race and justice in the reading and language arts department in the School of Education. She is an affiliated faculty member in the Departments of African American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Composition and Rhetorical Studies. She holds courtesy appointments in the Departments of Nutrition and Food Studies and Cultural Foundations of Education. She chaired the Department of Reading and Language Arts in the School of Education from 2015 to 2021. She served as founding co-director of the Lender Center for Social Justice. She also served as Chair of the Agenda Committee for the University Senate from 2019-2021.
Haddix’s scholarly interests focus on the experiences of students of color in literacy and English teaching and teacher education and the importance of centering Blackness in educational practices and spaces. She facilitates literacy programs for adolescent and adult communities in Syracuse, including the Writing Our Lives project for urban youth writers, for which she was recognized with the 2020 Orange Circle Award, and a Black women’s literary club and free library project. She is co-founder of the Sankofa Reproductive Health & Healing Center and a founding member of Cafe Sankofa Cooperative in Syracuse’s South Side community. She is a previous recipient of a Meredith Teaching Recognition Award and the Seinfeld Scholar Award and in 2021 received the Divergent Award for Excellence in Literacy Advocacy from the Initiative for 21st Century Literacies Research. She is also past president of the Literacy Research Association.
Haddix earned a Ph.D. from Boston College, a master’s degree in education from Cardinal Stritch University, and a bachelor’s degree in English education from Drake University.