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Dr. Mark Overmyer-Velázquez is the campus dean and chief administrative officer of the University of Connecticut–Hartford, where he also serves as Professor of History and Latine Studies. A nationallyrecognized leader in urban higher education, he directs a vibrant campus of approximately 3,000 students and 400 faculty and staff in the heart of Connecticut’s capital city. UConn Hartford is a federally designated Minority Serving Institution, recognized as both a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI), with undergraduate and graduate programs spanning seven UConn schools and colleges.

Since becoming dean in 2017, Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez has led UConn Hartford through a period of significant institutional growth and transformation, helping reposition it as an increasingly residentialurban campus and anchor institution deeply connected to Hartford and the surrounding region. Under his leadership, the campus has expanded its physical footprint, strengthened student success programs, increased philanthropic investment, developed new research and community partnerships, and advanced a mission centered on access, equity, academic excellence, and public impact.

A major milestone in that transformation was the opening of UConn Hartford’s first student residence hall in downtown Hartford in fall 2026. The new residential program expands opportunities for students from Connecticut, across the country, and internationally to live and learn in the state capital. Financial support, including the Hartford Housing Grant and privately funded scholarships, is helping make the residential experience accessible to students for whom housing costs might otherwise be a barrier.

Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez has also helped build a distinctive infrastructure for community-engaged research and learning. He led the development of CoLab, UConn Hartford’s collaborative research and community-engagement space within the Hartford Public Library, bringing researchers, students, community organizations, and Hartford residents together in a shared civic setting. The campus has also expanded opportunities for experiential learning, research, and public engagement through new partnerships and spaces across downtown Hartford, including a Community Intersections and Innovation Space at PeoplesBank Arena.

These initiatives build on the Research on Resilient Cities, Racism, and Equity initiative, established under his leadership to connect faculty expertise with pressing challenges facing cities and metropolitan regions. Together, these investments have strengthened UConn Hartford’s role as an urban research campus within a flagship R1 university and created new opportunities for students to participate in research, internships, community-based learning, and public scholarship.

Student access and success have remained central to Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez’s leadership. He has overseen the expansion of advising, coaching, mentoring, and student-support structures designedfor a campus where most students are the first in their families to attend college and are eligible for federal Pell Grants. In 2026, UConn Hartford launched its first Learning Community with philanthropic support from CVS/Aetna, creating a more integrated academic and co-curricular experience for students and strengthening connections among classroom learning, campus life, and the city of Hartford.

Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez has also made philanthropy an important part of UConn Hartford’s development. During his tenure, the campus has attracted substantial new philanthropic and grant supportfor scholarships, student success, research, community engagement, and academic initiatives, including major scholarship gifts and corporate and foundation support for the campus’s growing residential and experiential-learning mission.

Central to his leadership is the idea that an urban public university should serve as an anchor institution, advancing its academic mission while contributing to the educational, cultural, civic, and economic life of its region. He has cultivated partnerships with Hartford Public Library, schools and colleges, nonprofits, corporations, cultural institutions, foundations, and civic leaders throughout Greater Hartford.

Beyond the university, Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez has served as board chair of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and the Greater Hartford Consortium for Higher Education and has held leadershipor board roles with Hartford Public Library, the MetroHartford Alliance, Hartford Stage, Real Art Ways, and the iQuilt Partnership. Nationally, he has been active with the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities and efforts examining the role and impact of urban and metropolitan campuses.

Before becoming dean, he spent 15 years on the faculty at UConn Storrs and previously taught at Pomona College and Wesleyan University. He was the founding Director of UConn’s El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies. A historian of Mexico, migration, and the global Latine experience, he is the author or editor of several books, including Visions of the Emerald City (Duke University Press, 2006), Beyond la Frontera (Oxford University Press, 2011), and Global Latin(o) Americanos (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Dr. Overmyer-Velázquez was a Fulbright Scholar and the Peggy Rockefeller Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of British Columbia and hismaster’s and doctoral degrees in History from Yale University. He was also the first Latino elected official in West Hartford, serving for six years on the Board of Education and as its chair. His leadership has been recognized by the Urban League of Greater Hartford, Charter Oak Cultural Center, and Real Art Ways. He maintains his connection to the arts as keyboardist for the UConn faculty band, Blues Without Borders.