Jennifer Merritt Faria, Senior Director of Academics

Jennifer Merritt Faria has focused her 20+ year-long career in higher education on creating positive social change through engaged teaching, research, service, and scholarship. She holds a Master of Management degree from Northwestern University, a PhD from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, and a Master's degree in Pastoral Ministry from Santa Clara University (SCU). Grounded in Critical Theory and informed by the Ignatian tradition of solidarity and accompaniment, her research focuses on the ways in which participation in university-community engagement initiatives can elicit “mutual transformation” and spiritual connection. Prior to joining Miller Center, Jen was a faculty member at John Carroll University and the University of Virginia, and Director of Community-based Learning at Santa Clara’s Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education where she helped spearhead Thriving Neighbors, SCU’s place-based university-community engagement initiative.