Rate My Professor Dara Byrne

Dara N. Byrne serves as the fourth dean of William E. Macaulay Honors College at the City University of New York (CUNY). A professor of rhetoric and intercultural communications, she joined the CUNY system in 2003 and previously held leadership roles at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, including associate provost for undergraduate retention and dean of undergraduate studies from 2016 to 2022. She was instrumental in launching Macaulay Honors College at John Jay in 2012.

Byrne earned her PhD in rhetoric and intercultural communication from Howard University, along with a Rockefeller Foundation Residency Post-doctoral Fellowship at the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean. She holds a master’s degree and bachelor’s degree from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and is completing a master’s thesis in emergency management at John Jay College. During her tenure at John Jay, she secured over $15 million in funding, increased the graduation rate by 16 percent in five years, and developed partnerships with organizations including Google, Bank of New York Mellon, Robin Hood Foundation, and DataKind. Her work on AI and student success has been featured in Diverse Issues in Higher Education, Hechinger News, Google Policy Forum, and The New York Times. In 2024, she was named a Trailblazer in Higher Education by City & State New York. She serves on boards including the American Association of Colleges and Universities, Howard University’s Graduate School Board of Visitors, the New York City Education and Training Coalition, the Valley Health Hospital System’s President’s Council, and the Women’s Forum of New York.