SUNY New Paltz will present honorary doctorate to Jessica Faieta ’85 at 2024 Commencement ceremony on May 18

SUNY New Paltz will welcome distinguished alumna Jessica Faieta ’85 (Economics; Business Administration) to campus on May 18, 2024, where she will deliver the Commencement Address at our Saturday Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony and receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree, the highest form of recognition offered by the State University of New York.

Faieta is among the most notable alumnae of New Paltz’s College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. She came to the University as an international student from Ecuador and used her time here to propel herself toward a career as an internationally recognized leader specializing in global sustainable and human development.

“It has been a privilege to dedicate my life to the positive transformation of the lives of the poorest, the most left-behind people on the planet,” Faieta said. “My journey started with my education at SUNY New Paltz, where my values and convictions were forged.”

Faieta, currently a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs, previously worked for nearly three decades with the United Nations, where she held a variety of leadership roles that primarily supported communities and governments in Latin America and the Caribbean: Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Deputy Head of the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia; UN Assistant Secretary-General and United Nations Development Program Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean; and Director of United Nations Development Program in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 Earthquake, among many others.

Across her impactful career, Faieta has witnessed first-hand the effects of extreme poverty, natural disasters and conflict on the most vulnerable, and has been part of large-scale humanitarian, peacebuilding and development efforts to help societies grow.

In the midst of this work, Faieta consistently made time to return to her alma mater and share her wisdom and experiences with SUNY New Paltz students. She has supported multiple programs in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences through talks and internship opportunities, is a two-time keynote speaker for the University’s Women’s Leadership Summit and previously addressed our graduates as a 2017 Commencement speaker.

Faieta’s reach in public higher education and academia extends more broadly as well. She was the featured speaker at last fall’s Global Engagement Speaker Series, sponsored by the Foreign Policy Association and the SUNY Global Engagement Program (GEP), which gives students interested in international relations careers an opportunity to spend a semester with the United Nations immersed in current global issues.

Jessica Faieta holds a master’s in international affairs and an MBA from Columbia University. As a student at New Paltz, she completed programs in economics and business and graduated from the University’s ESL program, a precursor to the Haggerty English Learning Pathways Program (HELP). HELP is a recognized leader in the SUNY system for helping international students develop the language skills they need to thrive in the United States.