Donna L. Wiseman, Ph.D., assumed the duties of Dean of the College of Education at the University of Maryland in May 2008
She served as interim dean of the college during the 2007-08 academic year. Prior to that, she held the position of Associate Dean for Academic Programs responsible for student services and advising, international activities, outreach, teacher education and accreditation. Wiseman is also a professor in the Teaching, Learning, Policy and Leadership Department.
Before joining the University of Maryland in 2001, she held various leadership positions at Northern Illinois University and Texas A&M University. At Maryland she served as a member of the University Committee on Diversity and was the College of Education's equity officer. She is a past chair of the President's Commission on Women's Issues, and served on the Vice President's Advisory Council for Curriculum and Courses and the University International Advisory Committee. Most recently she served on the President’s Commission on Athletics and served as the Chair for the Dean of the School of Public Health Search Committee.
Wiseman is involved with a number of professional organizations and agencies at the state and national level. She serves on the board of directors of the Council of Academic Deans from Research Education Institutions (CADREI), the International Consortium on Teacher Education (ICTE), and APLU’s Science Mathematics Teacher Initiative. She was appointed as a member of the NCATE Blue Ribbon Panel on Clinical Preparation and is the past chair of the board of directors for the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) and has recently been appointed to NCATE’s Commission on Standards and Performance Reporting (CAEP).
A former public school teacher, Wiseman's professional and scholarly interests include literacy development and instruction, school-university partnerships, teacher professional development, diversity in today's classrooms, and equitable access to education. She teaches courses in literacy development, reading and language arts teaching methods, children's literature, and teacher research and leadership. Wiseman has published numerous books and articles in literacy and teacher education. Her early scholarship centered on children's reading and writing development and readers' responses to children's literature. Her recent scholarly efforts have focused on professional development for teachers who teach in diverse classrooms and connecting teacher education initiatives to public school student achievement. Over the past decade, Wiseman has been the principal investigator or co-principal investigator for over $10 million in grants.
Wiseman received her bachelor's degree in elementary education from Oklahoma State University, her master's degree in reading from Arkansas State University, and her doctorate in reading from the University of Missouri–Columbia.
April 2012