Dr. Joseph Cronin was a past president of Bentley College, and the director of the college consulting company EDVISORS., an educational advisory service assisting colleges and universities, schools, states, corporations and foundations with plans, strategies and program reviews.
Dr. Cronin earned AB and MAT degrees from Harvard and a Doctorate in Education from Stanford University in l965. He served as the Massachusetts Secretary of Education, Illinois State Superintendent of Education, President of the Massachusetts Higher Education Assistance Corporation, and President of Bentley College from 1991 to 1997. He was Associate Professor of Educational Administration and Associate Dean at Harvard University. He holds the honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Lesley University where he served as trustee, chair of Academic Affairs, and in 2003-2004 as interim Dean of the School of Education.
During the 1980’s he helped evaluate World Bank efforts to upgrade the availability of educational technology at Cairo University. While President of Bentley College, his faculty worked with Estonian professors of business to replace an old Soviet curriculum with free market concepts. He took part in Governor’s trade missions to Argentina, Brazil and Japan. Bentley Trustees in 1997 named the Joseph M. Cronin International Education Center in recognition of his efforts to double international student enrollments. He has also advised senior education officials in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
He was the founding chair of the New England Education Loan Marketing Foundation and later Senior Fellow of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. Since 2002 he has taught Higher Education administration courses in the graduate program at Boston University. His publications include The Control of Urban Schools, Student Loans: Risks and Realities, and a 2008 volume on Reforming Boston Schools 1930-2006. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.
