Biographical
Information
Patricia J. Gumport is Vice Provost for Graduate Education, Professor of Education, and Director of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research (SIHER) at Stanford University. She received her graduate degrees from Stanford University, two master’s degrees and a PhD in 1987. Her BA was from Colgate University, where she later worked as assistant dean of admissions and served on the Board of Trustees. Prior to joining the Stanford faculty in 1989, she was a postdoctoral researcher in comparative (international) higher education, and assistant professor of organizational studies in higher education at UCLA.
Dr.Gumport’s research and teaching explicate key changes in the academic landscape and organizational character of American higher education. She is known for diagnosing the complexity of contemporary pressures on higher education to change, and for helping higher education leaders respond appropriately while also striving to improve the quality and status of their institutions. Her academic publications include six books and over 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. As a sociologist of higher education, she has analyzed the organizational, political, economic, and intellectual interests that redefine the content, structure, and relative legitimacy of academic fields and institutions. For example, Academic Pathfinders (2002) examines the emergence of feminist scholarship to identify the conditions in which new knowledge is created and becomes institutionalized. Academic Legitimacy (forthcoming) analyzes the ascendance of industry logic—expectations for public higher education to adopt corporate forms and to develop more and deeper ties with industry. She shows how organizational restructuring has yielded notable gains but also intensified tensions among divergent beliefs about what a college or university should do and how it should be organized to gain prestige and legitimacy. Gumport’s current research in the U.S. and the European Union examines how universities that are ostensibly competitors determine when and how to collaborate.
Dr. Gumport has received numerous awards for her research and teaching. Most recently, she won the 2006 American Educational Research Association’s Exemplary Research Award in recognition of her outstanding scholarly contributions to the study of higher education. She has successfully competed for approximately $17 million in research grants from government agencies and foundations. Her largest grant award (1995–2003) led her to serve as the founding Executive Director / Principal Investigator of the National Center for Postsecondary Improvement headquartered at Stanford University.
Dr. Gumport’s expertise is recognized both nationally and internationally. She has presented over 90 papers at professional conferences and over 60 invited addresses to higher education organizations and institutes in the United States (such as the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing Boards, and the Washington Higher Education Secretariat) and abroad (in Copenhagen, Hiroshima, Kassel, London, Mexico City, Rome, Stockholm, and Sydney). She has served on the editorial board of three leading higher education journals: The Review of Higher Education, Higher Education: The International Journal of Higher Education and Educational Planning, and The Journal of Higher Education (Chair, 1994–1995). She has served on the Board of Directors for the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and on advisory boards for several national research projects.
Dr. Gumport’s consulting activities span a wide range of topics and clients. Through focus groups, in-depth case studies, and short-term projects, she has provided expertise to higher education leaders and policymakers facing challenges in academic restructuring, curricular change, mission differentiation, academic planning, program review, faculty productivity, graduate education, and interdisciplinarity. For state systems, she has consulted on undergraduate education, academic planning, academic program reviews, and public higher education system design in Arizona, California, Illinois, Missouri, New York, North Dakota, and Texas. At the national and trans-national level, she has served the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Council of Graduate Schools, the Fulbright Commission, the National Science Foundation, the OECD, the Social Science Research Council, and the U.S. Department of Education. She has advised philanthropic foundations such as the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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