Alberto Acereda is a Spanish former professor who currently works as Associate Vice President in the Global Higher Education Division at Educational Testing Service (ETS) in Princeton, New Jersey. He provides overall leadership for business development initiatives and academic outreach in global and higher education. Previously at ETS he worked as Senior Director of Business Development and as senior strategic advisor to the Vice President and COO of higher education. Prior to joining ETS in 2012, he spent nearly twenty years at various universities and graduate programs across the United States.
He was a professor of Spanish and Latin American literatures and cultures and the chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the "School of International Letters and Cultures" at Arizona State University, (United States), where he also served as director of graduate studies. He was also a member of the ASU Provost's executive committee and the president of the Senate of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University and was named Dean's Fellow in the same college. He is also member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language ("Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española"), a branch of the Real Academia Española and the author of several articles and op-eds in European and American newspapers. While he continues to be a faculty affiliate at Arizona State University's Hispanic Research Center, he has also been a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Biography
Early life
Alberto Acereda was born in Calahorra, La Rioja, Spain in 1965. He studied at the La Salle School, in Tarragona, Spain. He graduated in Hispanic philology at the University of Barcelona. He obtained a master's degree in Spanish literature and a doctorate in Spanish and Latin American literature (University of Georgia, US).
Career as a university professor
For nearly twenty years, he was a professor of Spanish and Latin American literatures (with particular emphasis on the fin de siècle, modernismo and modernity within transatlantic literary and cultural studies), former director of graduate studies in the "School of International Letters and Cultures" at Arizona State University (US), where he was also the chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. He was named to Dean's Faculty Fellow. He was also a faculty affiliate in the program of Jewish studies, and he was also the director and founder of the ASU Study Abroad Program at the University of Alicante (Spain). He has been a visiting professor at the Universidad Menéndez y Pelayo, at the Universidad de Alicante, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Career in higher education
At Arizona State University he worked at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and received significant experience with curriculum policy, development, and program review. He led a top undergraduate and graduate academic unit at Arizona State University and also directed several other graduate programs within the School of International Letters and Cultures and working directly with the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the dean of the graduate college, and the provost office. He also led projects on academic excellence for faculty in the midst of an innovative model in higher education called the "New American University." He was part of several university-wide curriculum and academic policy committees, such as the Tenure and Promotion Review, the Curriculum and Academic Programs and others. Acereda was also the president of the Faculty Academic Senate in the largest college at Arizona State. His current work at ETS deals with the larger picture and the possible solutions to the challenges currently faced in higher education in the United States and globally. At ETS, Acereda explores the changing directions in undergraduate and graduate education, the importance of faculty support and development, strategic planning and all the issues related to academic program review and its links to student learning outcomes and college success.