Margaret Everett

As Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Margaret Everett leads undergraduate and graduate teaching, research, scholarship, and service for the university. With more than 25 years as a distinguished administrator and educator in higher education, she has extensive experience in leading faculty and developing innovative, interdisciplinary programs.

At Roger Williams University, Dr. Everett serves as a strategic leader across RWU’s six schools of study and University College, collaborating with faculty and staff on the design of new academic models and programs that enhance the university’s mission to strengthen society through engaged teaching and learning.

Before RWU, Dr. Everett served as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Cambridge’s Lesley University, where she helped launch a continuing education campus in New Bedford, Mass., and expanded community college partnerships that enable degree completion for first-generation, low-income and diverse students. During her tenure, she developed an open educational resources initiative that innovated curriculum and reduced costs to students, and launched new bachelors and masters in social work programs that incorporated interdisciplinary offerings in neurodiversity.

Prior to Lesley University, Dr. Everett spent 22 years teaching and working in key leadership roles at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon. As Dean of Graduate Studies and Vice Provost for International Affairs, she led many initiatives that align with RWU strategic priorities such as redesigning graduate admissions services and creating international partnerships in Asia, Latin America and Europe, while also serving as a professor of anthropology, sociology and international studies.

Dr. Everett holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in anthropology from Yale University and Bachelor of Arts in Latin American Studies from Smith College. She has contributed to several books and authored articles on public health and urbanization in Latin America through an anthropological and sociological lens, and on questions surrounding morality and privacy in bioethics and genetic ethics. During her tenure at PSU, she received the Excellence in Community-University Partnerships Award and the John Eliot Outstanding Teaching Award. She on the board of trustees for the World Affairs Council of Oregon, as well as on the steering committee for GlobalPDX, the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Advisory Committee for the Oregon Department of Human Services, and several genetics research and genetics privacy advisory committees appointed by the Oregon state legislature.