About

Mary Ann Danowitz, D.Ed., served as the dean of the NC State College of Education from 2016 to October 4, 2021. During her tenure, she led a transformation of the college into a globally-recognized leader in education, overseeing nearly 1,700 students and 210 faculty and staff. Under her leadership, the college experienced three consecutive years of growth in new student enrollment, achieved new rankings in the U.S. News, and became a research powerhouse, bringing in over $20 million annually in research grants, placing it in the top 6% of all colleges of education nationally and at the top within North Carolina. The college is recognized for preparing top educators in the state, producing the largest number of STEM educators and master’s level literacy specialists in North Carolina. Danowitz joined NC State in 2012 as the head of the Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development and a professor of higher education. Her prior experience includes roles at the University of Denver, Ohio State University, the College of William and Mary, and Pennsylvania State University, where she held positions such as professor and director of the Higher Education Program and interim director of the School of Educational Policy and Leadership. Her research focuses on gender, diversity, and equity in leadership, governance, management, organizational change, and careers, especially within higher education in the United States and Europe. She has published extensively, including over 110 articles, book chapters, and academic papers, as well as five books and monographs. Danowitz has received numerous honors and awards, including Fulbright Scholarships, and has held leadership roles in various international and national organizations related to higher education and diversity.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political science
• Pedagogy
• Public relations
• Gender studies

Selected publications

• Insights into Phd Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration, Partnership and Competition in Computer Science

  SensePublishers eBooks · 2017-01-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  Many complex problems demand innovative approaches that combine knowledge from different scientific disciplines (Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Engineering, 2005; Frodeman et al, 2010). Cross-disciplinary research is therefore gaining importance as an intellectual partnership of demarcated domains of specialised inquiry. In order to prepare future generations of scientists to solve complex problems between and beyond the boundaries of single disciplines, efforts are being made to transform doctoral education.

  PublisherDOI

• Rethinking Higher Education Diversity Studies through a Diversity Management Frame

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2016-01-19 · 1 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter proposes a definition of diversity management for higher education institutions (HEIs) modified from the business sector. Using the definition as an organizing and guiding framework for the analysis of selected literature, the chapter argues that higher education diversity initiatives are interrelated elements in the organizational change process. Policy makers, educators, and practitioners need to be aware of the interaction of contextual factors in HEIs. Such a perception reduces confusion and misunderstanding about diversity management, and it informs more successful practices that can increase equity and inclusivity in HEIs. The chapter also suggests that HEIs’ diversity initiatives need to be implemented with consideration of the national context, and the connection between public institutions and educational policies at the system level.

  PublisherDOI

• Power, jobs and bodies: the experiences of becoming a gender scholar in doctoral education

  Studies in Higher Education · 2016-04-18 · 6 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Research suggests that doctoral students' learning and experiences are influenced by their relationships and predominant organizational norms and structures, create gender inequality and discourage or prevent alternative behaviors. However, there is very little empirical information on the nature of doctoral experiences and organizational activities and processes when an academic program focuses on gender. The study reported here approaches learning as a cognitive and social activity to identify and illuminate events and interaction students describe in becoming scholars as they negotiate their roles and relationships in an interdisciplinary program of gender studies in German-speaking Europe. Three dominant themes or factors shaped students’ experiences: (a) power and tensions associated with it, (b) jobs: discovering what was to be done, and when and how to do it to be successful, and (c) bodies: the doing of gender.

  PublisherDOI

• Becoming an interdisciplinary scientist: an analysis of students’ experiences in three computer science doctoral programmes

  Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management · 2016-05-12 · 15 citations

  articleSenior author

  The aim of this study was to identify how and why doctoral students do interdisciplinary research. A mixed-methods approach utilising bibliometric analysis of the publications of 195 students identified those who had published interdisciplinary research. This objective measurement of the interdisciplinarity, applying the Rao-Stirling index to Web of Science and Scopus citations, allowed for a comparison of students’ interdisciplinary research outcomes from three different computer science programmes: a traditional programme, a multidisciplinary doctoral school and an interdisciplinary doctoral college. Applying a sociocultural approach, interviews with the 15 most interdisciplinary students were analysed to understand how dispositions and experiences of students and factors of the different programmes affect the circumstances and processes of becoming an interdisciplinary early career scientist. The data indicate that student motivations, previous skills and knowledge interacted with policies and programme structures including type of funding and supervisor expectations to play a crucial role in interdisciplinarity at the doctoral level. These factors can give rise to interdisciplinary research even in programmes without interdisciplinary focus and compromise the interdisciplinary goals of interdisciplinary programmes.

  PublisherDOI

• Recalibrating Management: Feminist Activism to Achieve Equality in an Evolving University

  British Journal of Management · 2013-04-04 · 20 citations

  articleOpen access

  In this paper we examine the process of incorporating gender equality into a higher education institution as it evolves into a managerial university. The case illustrates the ongoing processes between structure, activism and features of gender equality, and provides insights into how activists adapt to changes in governance and influence managerial responses to equality. Tracing the interaction of employee activism with new managerialism over nearly two decades, four phases of change are identified. These provide a basis for generating two concepts – managerial recalibration and individual activism – while challenging the social abeyance hypothesis of social movements.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Diversity as Strategy

  2012-01-01 · 3 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2012-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Summing up Diversity in Organizations

  2012-01-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Diversity in Europe: Its Development and Contours

  2012-01-01 · 5 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Diversity in Organizations: Concepts and Practices

  WU Research · 2012-02-01

  other1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

Frequent coauthors

• Edeltraud Hanappi‐Egger

  5 shared

• María del Carmen Calatrava Moreno

  2 shared

• Heike Mensi‐Klarbach

  Vienna University of Economics and Business

  2 shared

• Regine Bendl

  2 shared

• Roswitha Hofmann

  2 shared

• Frank Tuitt

  2 shared

• Angelika Schmidt

  1 shared

• Marie‐Thérèse Claes

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Finland Fulbright Inter-country Award
• Australian American Educational Foundation Award
• The Ohio State University’s Kathryn Schoen Award for Leaders…
• Hilda Davis Award for Outstanding Leadership in Education fr…