The College of Public and Community Service’s Dean Ismael Ramirez-Soto will be coming up for review soon. Paul J. Fonteyn, provost and vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, announced February 28 that Dean Ramirez-Soto is to be reviewed during the spring semester. The review is a routine procedure. It is required by trustee policy that every vice chancellor, provost, and dean or director be reviewed every five years.

Dean Ramirez-Soto has been with UMass Boston since 1995. Born in Puerto Rico, he has a J.D. from the University of Puerto Rico and an Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Before he came to UMass Boston, Dean Ramirez-Soto taught for Project Head Start in Hartford, Connecticut. He also chaired the Board of Directors for UMass Amherst’s Legal Services Office, and he served as the managing attorney for seven legal service offices in Boston. Finally, he was a member of the Puerto Rican Commonwealth’s Council on Higher Education for nine years. In this position he was responsible for evaluating every public and private higher education program and licensing and accrediting all of private higher education in Puerto Rico.

Since Dean Ramirez-Soto has been with UMass Boston he has set up an advising system in which every student in the College of Community and Public Service is paired with a faculty advisor. He has also been involved in the Hispanic Writers’ Workshop held at UMass Boston and at public schools in the area, which is a program that advances literacy for Hispanic youth in the Boston metropolitan area. He is also a member of the General Education Steering Committee, whose main purpose in general education reform at UMass Boston, and belongs to a Massachusetts Chapter of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights. As a member of the latter organization, he recently went down to the small island of Vieques off the coast of Puerto Rico for a fact-finding mission, to look into the U.S. Navy using it as a military target and the effect that it has had on the population.

The review process is done by a committee. The committee is composed of Francis G. Caro, Christine Armett-Kibel, Connie Chan, Lal Chugh, Clara Estow, Carroy Ferguson, Phyllis Freeman, and Joan Liemot of UMass Boston, Beverly Anderson of Eastern Connecticut State University, and Lee Edwards of UMass Amherst. This committee’s official duty is to help Provost and Vice Chancellor Fonteyn gather and synthesize information that would pertain to Dean Ramirez-Soto’s performance.

The committee for reviewing the performance of Dean Ramirez-Soto has not yet met. It is chaired by a Dr. Francis G. Caro who is the director of the Gerontology Institute of the College of Public and Community Service. Dr. Caro was unavailable for comment. If anyone in the UMass Boston community wishes to comment on the performance of Dean Ramirez-Soto they may do so by contacting Dr. Caro.