Miami Dade College’s (MDC) president, Dr. Eduardo J. Padrón, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the University of Pennsylvania’s renowned Netter Center for Community Partnerships, for his extraordinary national leadership and contributions to higher education.
“I am so honored to be recognized with this distinction,” Dr. Padrón said. “At MDC, we believe that opportunity changes everything.
“The University of Pennsylvania is one of the finest institutions in the world and this recognition, which I accept on behalf of all my colleagues, only motivates us to continue working for an education system that is accessible, inclusive, and of the highest quality,” he added.
The award will be presented during the 25th anniversary International Conference on the Higher Education-Community Partnerships for Democracy and Social Change luncheon on Thursday, Nov. 16, at the University of Pennsylvania.
This is not the first time Dr. Padrón has received the highest distinctions from Ivy League Institutions. He has received honorary doctorates from Brown and Princeton, and from nearly 20 other top institutions worldwide.
An American by choice, Eduardo Padrón arrived in the United States as a teenage refugee in 1961. Since 1995, he has served as president of Miami Dade College (MDC), the largest institution of higher education in America with more than 165,000 students. He is credited with elevating MDC into a position of national prominence among the best and most recognized U.S. colleges and universities and fostering a culture of inclusion.
An economist by training, Dr. Padrón earned his PhD from the University of Florida. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., for being a prominent national voice for access and inclusion in higher education.
