The American Council on Education (ACE), has announced that Anne Brodsky has been named an ACE fellow for academic year 2016-17. Brodsky, an associate dean of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences and professor of psychology, is one of just 33 fellows selected nationwide following a rigorous nomination and application process.

Established in 1965, the ACE Fellows Program is designed to strengthen institutions and leadership in American higher education by identifying and preparing faculty and staff for senior positions in college and university administration.

Nearly 2,000 higher education leaders have participated in the ACE Fellows Program over the past five decades, with more than 80 percent of fellows having served as senior leaders of colleges and universities.

“The ACE Fellows Program cultivates leaders prepared to meet the constantly evolving challenges of today’s higher education landscape,” said ACE President Molly Corbett Broad in a press release announcing this year’s class. “The diverse and talented 2016-17 fellows class demonstrates why the program has been such a vital contributor for more than a half-century to expanding the leadership pipeline for our colleges and universities.”

“I am excited to follow in the footsteps of the UMBC faculty who have participated in this fellowship before me and the ACE fellows who have visited and been hosted by UMBC over the years,” shares Brodsky.

Dr. Brodsky is a community/clinical psychologist and her teaching, research, and practice focus is on resilience, psychological sense of community, and the role of communities in creating and resisting societal risks and oppressions, including violence, poverty, racism, and sexism. Her research was featured in the fall 2014 edition ofUMBC Magazine, and she was the recipient of the 2014 Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) Award for Distinguished Contributions to Theory and Research in Community Psychology.

“This fellowship provides me with an excellent opportunity to expand on what I’ve learned during my four years as an associate dean in CAHSS and previous years as associate chair of psychology and director of gender and women’s studies. I look forward to gaining new insights from my placement site, ACE training activities, and my ACE fellowship colleagues and bringing that knowledge back to UMBC,” Brodsky explains, adding, “I am particularly interested in issues of access, inclusion, participation, and retention at all levels of the university, as well as initiatives to promote the co-equal synergy of STEM, the social sciences, and all the liberal arts – a synergy that is necessary to contribute to changes in the real world that serve to enhance the university’s value to the community.”

The ACE Fellows Program combines retreats, interactive learning opportunities, campus visits, and placement at another higher education institution to condense years of on-the-job experience and skills development into a single semester or year. Fellows will focus on an issue of concern to their institution while spending the next academic year working with a college or university president and other senior officers at a host institution.

Throughout their placement, ACE fellows will develop a network of higher education leaders from across the country and abroad through the program’s three retreats on higher education issues organized by ACE. Fellows will also read extensively in the field and engage in interactive learning opportunities to increase their understanding of higher education challenges and opportunities. Read more about the ACE Fellows Program.

Image: Anne Brodsky. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.