Strengthening Partner Relations Through Innovation 

Meet Marissa Heringer, our new senior director for academic partnerships. Marissa brings 12 years of experience at the UW and will work with partner success leads to creatively strategize about how to help support our campus partners develop innovative programs.

Marissa Heringer has been named Continuum College’s new senior director of academic partnerships. In this role, she’ll guide the partner success leads in growing the organization’s relationships with academic partners. 

I'm excited to think across our entire tri-campus system, collaborate with faculty experts and enable the University to provide access to education beyond traditional learners. 

 — Marissa Heringer, Senior Director of Academic Partnerships, Continuum College

Heringer, who began her new position on August 17, “brings a broad range of experience and knowledge of UW through the multiple positions she has held,” says Sandi Janusch, assistant vice provost of International & Academic Programs. “She thrives at solving puzzles and is a natural leader who guides her team with equity, compassion and support. All these attributes are key for the position.”

In her 12 years at the UW, Heringer has supported student and academic affairs at a variety of levels, including as the resident director of Housing and Food Services, the graduate program manager for the Department of Biology and the director of academic services for the School of Educational Studies at UW Bothell. She spent the past year as a partner success lead at Continuum, building relationships with partners to support our programs in the College of Arts & Sciences and UW Bothell campus. 

“I'm excited to think across our entire tri-campus system, collaborate with faculty experts and enable the University to provide access to education beyond traditional learners,” says Heringer. “I believe that Continuum College can support innovation by providing structures and opportunities for programs to grow. There's growing interest around smaller credentials, badging and certificates, and being able to help incubate that work is exciting.”

As certificates and fee-based programs expand their reach, it’s also essential each one remains financially sustainable and maximizes its capacity. This initiative involves the recent launch of the new service and financial model. The model is a significant change for Continuum, but Janusch is confident that Heringer will excel at overseeing the task. 

“I am already impressed with how Marissa has jumped in and rolled up her sleeves to focus on all the moving parts needed to successfully implement these changes with maximum clarity and minimum disruption for our campus partners,” Janusch says. “She is an absolute rockstar and I am excited to support her continued success in this new role.”

We’re always listening and want to hear how we can continue to offer our services to campus through this new flexible service model.

 — Marissa Heringer, Senior Director of Academic Partnerships, Continuum College 

As senior director for academic partnerships, Heringer will empower campus partners to ensure they and Continuum work together as efficiently and effectively as possible.

“I am committed to ensuring partners have the information they need to make informed choices,” says Heringer. “We’re always listening and want to hear how we can continue to offer our services to campus through this new flexible service model, whether through add-on packages or different options. We want to be sure we’re meeting the needs of our campus partners as they grow and evolve their programmatic offerings.”

Heringer is eager to collaborate with campus partners and the expert teams within Continuum to brainstorm how to launch new programs that serve students throughout their lives. 

“We have so many amazing folks at Continuum. I continue to be impressed by the breadth and depth of expertise across our units. And I look forward to continuing to help partners access that knowledge,” says Heringer. 

“We’re committed to delivering high-quality, accessible education. And we look forward to working with departments to help them reach new populations of learners and develop novel and pioneering learning experiences for students.”