Neumann, Anna (an350)

B.A., University of Texas, Austin
M.A., University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley (formerly Pan American University)
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Anna Neumann, Edward S. Evenden Professor of Education, conducts research on teaching in higher education with an eye to improving first-generation students’ subject-matter learning, especially in the first two years of college as they engage in the general or liberal education curriculum. She also studies and writes on professional development strategies and programs for fostering this kind of teaching. Her recent work, in the form of translational scholarship, has involved formulating, leading, and studying such programs.

Neumann also studies professors’ intellectual careers with attention to their scholarly learning and development as researchers who use their studies to advance the public good and human well-being, as teachers concerned with students’ subject-matter learning and growth, and as institutional citizens and leaders. In this vein, she has conducted a major study of university professors’ scholarly learning and growth through the early post-tenure career, with attention to whether and how their work (especially their thinking about their content specialization) changes through it. Her research, attentive to scholars’ learning through the full length of their careers, also examines education doctoral students’ learning of research, and the autobiographical origins of academic women’s research in education. In future work, Neumann expects to study how academic women prepare for and experience the end of career (retirement), and how some go about launching post-career endeavors as sites for their learning, growth, and contributions to the social good. Neumann’s earliest work focused on institutional leadership in higher education with attention to leadership teams and teamwork, presidential leadership during financial “hard times,” and faculty members’ sensemaking of top administrators’ words and actions.

Neumann’s research has been funded by the Spencer Foundation, Teagle Foundation, U.S. Office of Education, Lilly Endowment, TIAA-CREF, and others. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Education Research Association. She is a recipient of the Research Achievement Award of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the Exemplary Research Award of the American Educational Research Association, Division J (Higher and Postsecondary Education). The Association for the Study of Higher Education recently honored her with the Howard R. Bowen Distinguished Career Award in recognition of “extraordinary scholarship, leadership, and service” that have “significantly advanced the field.” Neumann is past president of the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

Books, Monographs, Special Issues of Journals:

Pallas, Aaron, & Anna Neumann. Convergent Teaching: Tools to Spark Deeper Learning in College. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019. https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/convergent-teaching

Neumann, Anna. Professing to Learn: Creating Tenured Lives and Careers in the American Research University. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/professing-learn

O'Meara, KerryAnn, Aimee LaPointe Terosky, & Anna Neumann. Faculty Careers and Work Lives: A Professional Growth Perspective. ASHE Higher Education Report, Vol. 34, No. 3. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Neumann, Anna, Aaron Pallas, & Penelope L. Peterson, eds., Investment in the Future: Improving Education Research at Four Leading Schools of Education: Campus Experiences of the Spencer Foundation's Research Training Grant Program. Special Issue of Teachers College Record, Vol. 110, No. 7, July 2008. http://www.tcrecord.org/

Neumann, Anna, & Penelope L. Peterson (editors). Learning From Our Lives: Women, Research, and Autobiography in Education.  New York: Teachers College Press, 1997.

Bensimon, Estela M., & Anna Neumann. Redesigning Collegiate Leadership:  Teams and Teamwork in Higher Education. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

Conrad, Clifton F., Anna Neumann, Jennifer Grant Haworth, & Patricia Scott (editors). Qualitative Research in Higher Education: Experiencing Alternative Perspectives and Approaches. Needham Heights, MA: Ginn Press, Simon & Schuster Higher Education Publishing Group, 1993.

Bensimon, Estela M., Anna Neumann, & Robert Birnbaum. Making Sense of Administrative Leadership: The `L' Word in Higher Education. ASHE/ERIC Higher Education Reports, No. 1. Washington, D. C.: Association for the Study of Higher Education, 1989.

Articles and Chapters (selected):

Neumann, Anna, and Aaron M. Pallas.  “Pushmi-Pullyu: A Joint Autobiography,” Education Review, forthcoming.

Neumann, Anna.  “Translating Myself: An Immigrant Scholar’s Journey through Post-Holocaust Terrains.”  In Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research, Vol. 41, edited by Laura W. Perna. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2025.   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-86738-5_1-1

Neumann, Anna.  “Teaching that Supports Students’ Academic Learning: Implications for Higher Education Practice, Policy, and Leadership.”  In American Higher Education in the 21st Century, 5^th ed.,  edited by Michael Bastedo, Phillip Altbach, and Patricia Gumport.  Baltimore:  Johns Hopkins University, 2023.

Neumann, Anna & Aaron M. Pallas.  “Closing Words: Helping Students to Learn Research and Become Researchers.” In A Practical Guide to Teaching Research Methods in Education:  Lesson Plans and Advice from Faculty, edited by Aimee LaPointe Terosky, Jeffrey Sun, and Vicki Baker.  UK: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2023.

Neumann, Anna, & Corbin Campbell. “Homing in on Learning and Teaching: Current Approaches and Future Directions for Higher Education Policy,” In American Higher Education in the 21st Century, edited by Michael Bastedo, Phillip Altbach, Robert Berdahl & Patricia Gumport, eds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2016, pp. 401-431.

Neumann, Anna, & Aaron M. Pallas. “Critical Policy Analysis, the Craft of Qualitative Research, and Analysis of Data on the Texas Top 10% Law.” In Critical Approaches to the Study of Higher Education, edited by Ana Martinez Aleman, Brian Pusser, & Estela M. Bensimon. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015, pp. 153-173.

Neumann, Anna. “Staking a Claim on Learning: What We Should Know about Learning in Higher Education, and Why,” Review of Higher Education, Vol. 37, No. 2, Winter 2014, pp. 249-267.

Neumann, Anna, & Liza Bolitzer. “Finding and Fostering Learning: What College and University Leaders Need to Know and What They Can Do.” In New Directions for Higher Education, special issue on “Connecting Learning across the Institution,” edited by Pamela Eddy. Vol. 2014, Issue No. 165. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014, pp. 95-106.

Neumann, Anna. "Research as Thought and Emotion in Researchers’ Learning." Special issue on “Ethics and Emotions in Educational Research," Research Intelligence, bulletin of the British Educational Research Association, Summer 2012.

Neumann, Anna, Milagros Castillo, & Liza Bolitzer. “Culturally Anchored Liberal Education.” In Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, edited by James A. Banks. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2012.

Neumann, Anna.  “Organizational Cognition in Higher Education.”  In The Organization of Higher Education: Managing Colleges for a New Era, edited by Michael N. Bastedo. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012, pp. 304-331.

Neumann, Anna, & Aaron M. Pallas. “Windows of Possibility: Perspectives on the Construction of Educational Researchers.” In The Sage Handbook for Research in Education: Pursuing Ideas as the Keystone of Exemplary Inquiry, edited by Clifton F. Conrad & Ronald C. Serlin. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2011, pp. 299-322.

 Neumann, Anna.  “Scholarly Learning and the Academic Profession in a Time of Change.”  In The American Academic Profession: Transformation in Contemporary Higher Education, edited by Joseph C. Hermanowicz. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011, pp. 191-215.

Neumann, Anna. "Protecting the Passion of Scholars in Times of Change." Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, Vol. 41, No. 2, March/April 2009, pp. 10-15.

Neumann, Anna, Aaron Pallas, & Penelope L. Peterson.  “Exploring the Investment:  Four Universities‚ Experiences with the Spencer Foundation’s Research Training Grant Program:  A Retrospective.”  In Investment in the Future: Improving Education Research at Four Leading Schools of Education: Campus Experiences of the Spencer Foundation’s Research Training Grant Program.  Special Issue of Teachers College Record, Vol. 110, No. 7, July 2008, pp. 1477-1503.

Terosky, Aimee LaPointe, Tamsyn Phifer, & Anna Neumann. “Shattering Plexiglas: Continuing Challenges for Women Professors in Research Universities.” In Women in Academe: The Unfinished Agenda, edited by Judith Glazer-Raymo. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 2008, pp. 52-79.

Neumann, Anna, & Aimee LaPointe Terosky. “To Give and to Receive: Recently Tenured Professors’ Experiences of Service in Major Research Universities.” The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 78, No. 3, May/June 2007, pp. 282-310.

Neumann, Anna. “Professing Passion:  Emotion in the Scholarship of Professors in Research Universities.” American Educational Research Journal. Vol. 43, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 381-424.

Neumann, Anna, Aimee LaPointe Terosky, & Julie Schell. “Agents of Learning: Strategies for Assuming Agency, for Learning, in Tenured Faculty Careers.” In The Balancing Act: Gendered Perspectives in Faculty Roles and Work Lives, edited by Susan J. Bracken, Jeanie K. Allen, & Diane R. Dean. Women's Caucus of the American Association for Higher Education. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2006, pp. 91-120.

Neumann, Anna, & Aaron M. Pallas. “Windows of Possibility: Perspectives on the Construction of Educational Researchers.” In The SAGE Handbook for Research in Education: Engaging Ideas and Enriching Inquiry, edited by Clifton Conrad &Ronald C. Serlin. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2005, pp. 429-450.

Neumann, Anna. “Observations: Taking Seriously the Topic of Learning in Studies of Faculty Work and Careers.” In Advancing Faculty Learning Through Interdisciplinary Collaboration, edited by Elizabeth G. Creamer & Lisa Lattuca, New Directions for Teaching and Learning, no. 102, Marilla D. Svinicki, Editor-in-Chief, &R. Eugene Rice, Consulting Editor. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Summer 2005, pp. 63-83.

 Neumann, Anna. “To Glimpse Beauty and Awaken Meaning: Scholarly Learning as Aesthetic Experience,” published as part of “Symposium: Aesthetic Lives: Teaching and Learning as Creative Work.” Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 39, No. 4, Summer 2005, pp. 68-88.

Neumann, Anna, Aaron M. Pallas, & Penelope L. Peterson. “Preparing Education Practitioners to Practice Education Research.” In Issues in Education Research: Problems and Possibilities, edited by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann & Lee S. Shulman, Commission for Improving Educational Research, National Academy of Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999, pp. 247-288.

Neumann, Anna. “Inventing a Labor of Love: Scholarship as a Woman’s Work.” In Women's Untold Stories: Breaking Silence, Talking Back, Voicing Complexity, edited by Mary Romero & Abigail J. Stewart. New York: Routledge, 1999, pp. 243-255.

Neumann, Anna. “On Experience, Memory, and Knowing: A Post-Holocaust (Auto)biography.” Curriculum Inquiry, Vol. 28, No. 4, Winter 1998, pp. 425-442.

Neumann, Anna. "Ways without Words: Learning from Silence and Story in Post-Holocaust Lives." In Learning From Our Lives: Women, Research, and Autobiography in Education, edited by Anna Neumann & Penelope L. Peterson. New York: Teachers College Press, 1997, pp. 91-120.