Higher education leader, advocate retires from University System of Maryland

Education advocates typically don’t garner much praise when it comes to trying to improve Maryland’s public education system, especially those who work quietly behind the scenes.

But it’s hard not to notice the work Nancy Shapiro has either led or contributed to over 50 years as an educator that began as a Delaware high school teacher in 1974 and ended last Friday when she retired as an associate vice chancellor at the University System of Maryland.

In between, she founded the College Park Scholars program at the University of Maryland, College Park, worked on the problems of teacher shortages and computer science education, wrote books and was an important voice in the crafting of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future education reform plan. While she was not an official member of the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education, Shapiro served as a designee for the university system chancellor and became an advocate on its higher education recommendations.

“She was a designated representative, which was actually great because she knew more than the chancellor knew about these issues,” said William “Brit” Kirwan, chancellor emeritus of the university system and chair of the commission.

Kirwan, who worked with Shapiro for more than 30 years, including his time as president at the University of Maryland, College Park, called Shapiro an “important collaborator” who didn’t ask for any credit.

“She has just made a huge difference in our state and in the education of our children,” he said in a recent interview. “There are just countless kids now and in generations to come who owe her a debt of gratitude because we have a better system because of Nancy.”

Kirwan is not the only to go sing her praises. Gov. Wes Moore (D) issued a citation for Shapiro’s 40 years of service “on behalf of the University of Maryland,” and she was honored with an “Outstanding Alumni Award” from the university, where she received a doctorate in education in 1984.

“It’s been an extraordinary career in the system,” Shapiro said. “When you’re doing something you love, it’s not work.”

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Shapiro graduated in 1969 from Brandeis University, where she double-majored in history and English and where she met her husband, Ira Shapiro , an author, former U.S. Senate staffer and trade ambassador in the Clinton administration. They celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary June 22.

She earned a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Delaware in 1974, launching her career in education.

At the University of Maryland, she served as executive director of the College Park Scholars program in 1994 with about 75 students who resided and took the same classes together for their first two years in school. It has since grown to a 3,000-student “learning community” on which she has co-authored two books: “Creating Learning Communities” and “Sustaining and Improving Learning Communities.”

For the last 24 years, she has been an associate vice chancellor for education and outreach with the University System of Maryland, where she helped bring in nearly $50 million in federal and private grants, worked on teacher diversity and assessed college and career readiness programs in public schools, among other duties.

She helped boost computer science education through the university system’s Maryland Center for Computing Education . In a 2023 report by code.org , a national nonprofit that focuses on computer science education, Maryland and Arkansas were the only two states where 99% of high schools offer computer science courses.

More recently, she has been involved in the 10-year Blueprint for Maryland’s Future.

“The thing that the Blueprint has been able to do is refocus the entire education system on pathways into college and career,” Shapiro said. “That’s the biggest impact for students. They will start thinking about their pathway earlier.”

For those who worry about the plan’s cost, Shapiro says that if we don’t pay for education now “you’re going to have to pay for something else.”

“You’re going to have to pay unemployment. You’re going to have to pay for prison,” she said. “Education is the pathway that educates for citizenship, for responsible, productive members of our society.”

Citizenship will be part of her future as a senior adviser to the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement , a coalition that seeks to incorporate civic education in higher education. Shapiro said State Higher Education Executive Officers in about 14 states committed “to include civic learning and democracy engagement in their educational expectations for higher education in their states.”

She has already helped land a $78,521 grant for Maryland from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to train college students in the university system to become poll workers. Shapiro said the University of Maryland will collaborate with the Maryland State Board of Elections to help manage the initiative.

The goal is to have students, who would be paid, ready to work by the November general election.

“We’re educating our leaders of the future. Everybody in that workforce is going to vote or should vote. So how are they going to decide what’s important to them, or what their values are?” Shapiro said. “We need educated citizenry to preserve the democracy. That should be a high priority for all of higher education.”

While advocating for civic education nationwide, one activity Shapiro said she plans to do more is spending time with twin soccer-playing grandsons.

“I don’t need to rest. I just want to do it,” she said.

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