Julia M. McNamara

Julia M. McNamara is a scholar of French literature, an academic administrator, and a former nun. She served as president of Albertus Magnus College in New Haven from 1982 to 2016.^[1][2]

Julia M. McNamara
Education	Yale University (Ph.D.)

McNamara grew up in Queens, New York and attended Dominican Academy.^[3] She earned degrees from Ohio Dominican University and Middlebury College before completing her PhD in French at Yale University, with a dissertation on Julien Green.^[1][4] A member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace until 1987, she joined the faculty of Albertus Magnus, founded by the order, in 1976, and became a dean there in 1980.^[3] She presided over a thorough transformation of the college, beginning with the admission of men for the first time in 1985.^[5] She also expanded the college's fundraising efforts, succeeding in significantly adding to its endowment.^[6] She retired in 2016.^[2]

Outside of Albertus, McNamara has served on the board of Yale New Haven Hospital and other local charities.^[1] She was the first woman to serve on the Committee of the Proprietors of the Common and Undivided Lands, which oversees the New Haven Green.^[1][7]