Marissa Lucchesi, MA

Director of Scholars Programs, Student Academic Services

Marissa Lucchesi was selected to serve as the inaugural Director of Scholars Programs in 2023. Her unit serves a diverse community of first year and continuing students to provide wrap-around services that facilitate personal growth through academic success initiatives, tailored co-curricular engagement, and career readiness. Marissa’s department has established several strategic partnerships and pipelines with non-profits that have resulted in Scholars Programs operating as a leader in facilitating the increased retention and persistence rates of first-generation and low/limited income students at Loyola.  

In 2023, Marissa led the establishment of the Scholars Programs department, bringing together three previously isolated resources at Loyola for primarily first-generation students. She worked closely with her team to create a totally unique leadership scholar experience under Loyola’s historic $100,000,000 grant from the Schreiber family, and identified common areas of support across the Cristo Rey, Senn, Greer, Arrupe-Continuing, Leadership Scholars Program, and TRIO/ACE (Achieving College Excellence) programs with the intention of promoting best practices while supporting students who are primarily first-generation and low/limited income. In the Spring of 2023, she worked closely with Student Success and the Institute of Racial Justice to embark on a three- year study that examined the impact wrap-around support provides first-generation and low/limited income students in comparison to their peers with similar identities at Loyola.  

In 2024, Marissa resurrected National First-Generation Celebration at Loyola, bringing together over 400 students, faculty, and staff who were the first in their families to complete a degree. In 2025 she led her team in executing a $175,000.00 grant to create a faculty-mentoring program for Arrupe-Continuing scholars as they continued to pursue a bachelor’s degree at Loyola. As a result, the Arrupe-Continuing program was able to empower 20 undergraduate scholars to engage in critical research with 15 faculty members spanning across seven schools and colleges. This program not only strengthened the research competencies of Arrupe-Continuing's student community at Loyola, it also established an impactful mentoring opportunity between faculty and students that resulted in increased career readiness. In the same year, the TRIO/ACE program successfully secured another $5,000,000 grant across five years from the federal government to continue providing wrap-around support to 140 undergraduates who identify as first-generation, Pell-eligible, and/or have a documented disability. Since joining Scholars Programs in 2023, the ACE program has exceeded all program outcomes, resulting in a 100% first-second year retention rate, and 84% six-year graduation rate.  

While Scholars Programs primarily supports over 500 students who are first-generation and/or low/limited income, the community also uplifts residential and commuter students, STEM students, students who study-abroad, students from Chicago-area high schools and schools across the country, the Cristo Rey Network, internation students, and students who work closely with the Student Accessibility Center to manage their documented disability. The department is home to over 40 on-campus jobs, a Leadership Living Learning Community, and 6 graduate internships. The department is supported by a combination of funding sources including grants, donors, university funding and non-profit support.  

Marissa has served in a leadership capacity at Loyola since 2019 where she started in Advancement, and was recruited in 2020 to the Division of Student Development where she led her team through Covid and assisted with managing the university’s transition to online engagement. Her strategic leadership during covid led to her nomination for Loyola’s “employee of the year” in 2022. In 2025, Marissa was selected as the recipient of the Student Success Catalyst and Innovation Award for enacting creative and positive change as Loyola. She chairs the First-Generation Student Success Committee, and leads a dynamic team of ten professionals, four of whom are pursuing advanced degrees. The team possesses leadership roles across the university in the Undergraduate Advising Council, University Staff Council, Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, teach Univ 101, and regularly publish in journals that research best practices when supporting first-generation students at the undergraduate level. Several members of the team are actively engaged in service outside their roles, supporting national first-generation initiatives, mentoring programs, leadership roles within NACADA, and board positions at midwestern institutions. The team in Scholars Programs is passionate about promoting students success in their journeys to, through, and beyond college.