Mary Gutierrez

Dr. Mary Gutierrez serves at the vice president of instruction at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, a position she has held since June 2018. Over a 30-year career in education, Mary has created innovative, collaborative, student-centered environments in which staff, faculty, and administrators can do their best work and measure their progress using equity-informed metrics. Guided by a deep commitment to student success and equity, she is known for her integrity, communication, and inclusive leadership.

As vice president, Mary has provided an integrated vision for the college’s implementation of guided pathways and state mandates, connecting these initiatives to a single effort to achieve equitable outcomes for students. Mary served six years as the dean of language arts at Skyline College in San Bruno, California, proving collaborative leadership for the college’s guided pathways design and implementation. Additionally, during her tenure at Skyline, Mary worked with faculty to replace developmental courses that erected barriers with transfer-level courses that closed equity gaps by accelerating students’ progress to completion. Mary also served as the founding director of a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded early-college program at Highline College in Des Moines, Washington, and the founding director for a leadership program for underrepresented students at the University of San Diego.

Following coursework in educational leadership at the University of Washington and San Francisco State University, Mary received her Ed.D. in educational leadership with a dissertation focused on equity, institutional change, and communities of practice. She earned her BA and MA in English from Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.