Peter Ellard, Ph.D.

Consulting Areas: Change Management, Retention and Student Success, Constructing Success Centers and targeted programs for At-Risk Students.

Dr. Peter Ellard has been working in the education field for 32 years. Most recently, he served as the Vice President for Student Outcomes and Success at Merrimack College, a position responsible for planning, implementing and managing Merrimack's student success, retention and outcomes, with oversight of a $7 million budget. He served on the President's Cabinet for six years, advising the President and Executive Vice President on all issues related to student success, including course success, student satisfaction, career placement and hiring of staff, instructors and decisions related to investments, hiring and budget and space reallocation related to the student experience. He managed as many as seventy staff members across multiple departments.

His areas of expertise include the review and building out of accessibility services, tutoring services, academic advising, career services, programs for under-performing students, centers for teaching and learning and student retention.

Before his appointment as Vice President, Dr. Ellard was Dean of Student Success. In this role, he transformed the student success experience, helped raise retention rates, built cross-campus relationships and reviewed and contributed to the discussions about every new degree and academic program. At Merrimack, he created many student success programs, including The Promise Program, The Drive Program, The Dean's Forum, Pioneer Scholars Program, The Activate Program and the Study Partners Program. Prior to that, Dr. Ellard held various positions at Siena College, including Associate Vice President, where he was twice selected by the student body as administrator of the year and as teacher of the year. While at Siena, he created a structure to increase retention rates, ultimately moving the needle by 6% over three years.

Dr. Ellard is an experienced administrator and nationally-recognized scholar on the writings of both Thomas Berry and the twelfth-century School of Chartres. His work in these two fields is widely cited. He has twice been invited by the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I to take part in Symposia — in Greece and Turkey — and, while at Siena College, led the Advisory Board, made of local community leaders, of the prestigious Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King Lecture Series on Race and Nonviolent Social Change.  

His scholarship spans a wide breadth of topics. His first book was The Sacred Cosmos: Theological, Philosophical, and Scientific Conversations in the Twelfth Century School of Chartres (2007). He has published articles, book chapters and book reviews, and he has lectured widely.