Kathleen Sparaco

Dr. Kathy Sparaco is the Executive Director of INTO Suffolk University. As INTO Suffolk’s first Executive Director, Dr. Sparaco is responsible for delivering success to the JV partners and stakeholders. She joined Suffolk in 2012 as the Director of the International Office after completing her EdD.

Over the past 7 years, she has played a key role contributing to Suffolk University’s internationalization efforts. Prior to her current role, Dr. Sparaco was the Assistant Provost overseeing the Division of Student Success. She is a seasoned administrator, but her professional origins began in front of the classroom with teaching ESL in Japan. Teaching ESL abroad and in the U.S. was a professionally formative experience that provided the infrastructure for her future goals. Throughout her career she has worked on behalf of international students and professionals in community colleges, public research, and private institutions. She brings a clear understanding of the skill set needed to design and implement innovative and relevant processes to meet critical campus resources in realizing internationalization goals.

Dr. Sparaco holds an M.Ed.in Education from San Francisco State University and an EdD from Drexel University where she pursued a degree in Higher Education Leadership and Management. She has a practical and practiced approach to her work but is informed by research. Her dissertation focused on the phenomenon of internationalization in higher education and, specifically, the professional lives of practitioners who work with international students. Her research considered (1) what encompassed the lived experience of international student advisors, (2) what emergent concerns might be important in the experiences of international student advisors, and (3) in what way have the personal constructs of professionalism and professional identity for international student advisors been developed? Understanding how practitioners in the field of international education found an authentic sense of professional self was a hugely rewarding study. Kathy is currently conducting research with Suffolk faculty on faculty and staff best practices with international students.