Mary Carney
Senior Director of Faculty and Leadership Development | Courtesy Faculty, Department of English
Mary A. Carney is Senior Director of Faculty and Leadership Development (FLD) in the Office of Faculty Affairs and holds a courtesy faculty appointment in the Department of English. She provides strategic leadership for university-wide professional development initiatives, including the conception and implementation of the Advanced Leader Program, expansion of the Faculty Leader Series, and redesign of New Faculty Orientation, Keys to UGA: New Faculty Academy, and New Leader Program. She researches, designs, and facilitates professional development focused on success as a faculty member, leadership skills, effective communication, mentoring, and increasing faculty engagement.
Carney is a regularly invited speaker and facilitator for faculty and leadership development events in the USG and in academic units across UGA. She was a 2020-2022 Leadership Fellow for the University System of Georgia (USG). Carney has coached and mentored hundreds of faculty members and academic leaders as they navigate the competing demands of their professional lives, strategize for continuing success, and make key career and leadership decisions.
Carney has 15 years of administrative leadership in faculty affairs, educational development, teaching and learning, and honors programs. Prior to joining UGA in 2019, she was Professor of English and Director of the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Leadership at the University of North Georgia. She conceptualized and expanded the Center’s four primary focus areas: Academic Leadership, Career Milestones, Scholarly Productivity, and Teaching & Learning. She recruited and led a team of faculty fellows to provide outreach on all five campuses with individualized, responsive professional development. While in this role, she co-founded and co-directed the USG Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Fellows program from 2016 to 2019. She chaired the USG Consortium for Teaching and Learning in 2014-2015. From 2009-2012, prior to North Georgia’s consolidation with Gainesville State College, she was Director of the Honors Program, which provided courses and enrichment to students across two campuses and in multiple disciplines.
Her scholarly interests include 20th-century American literature, educational development, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Her authored and co-authored journal articles and book chapters appear in such publications as Higher Education, TLI: Teaching and Learning Inquiry, The Journal of Faculty Development, Edith Wharton Review, American Literary Scholarship, Southern Quarterly, The Emily Dickinson Journal, Academic Labor Beyond the College Classroom: Working for Our Values, Edith Wharton and Cosmopolitanism, and Privilege and Prejudice: Twenty Years with the Invisible Knapsack. She served on the editorial board of the Edith Wharton Review from 2015-2020 and was an associate editor of the International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (IJTLHE) from 2014-2016. She is currently Treasurer of the Edith Wharton Society.
She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Georgia. Carney completed the Professional Coaching Program at Rice University Doerr Institute for Leadership. She holds an Associate Certified Coach (ACC) credential from the International Coaching Federation.
