Marie Cini, PhD

Marie A. Cini is the senior academic innovation fellow at the University of Maryland University College. She took on this role in 2017, and in this capacity works on future trends in higher education, organizational change leadership and academic innovation thus developing new academic models for the future. Cini stepped into this role after four years as provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at UMUC. Prior to that, Cini served as vice provost and dean of the Undergraduate School, overseeing 32 academic programs and numerous certificates. She has presented and published on teaching leadership online; assessing leadership development in adult students; the role of online education in educational institutions, and the promise of assessment in online education to transform all educational models. Her career has focused on serving the educational needs of nontraditional students with complex lives in several institutions of higher education, where she has honed her approach to introducing innovation into institutional culture.

After earning her PhD in social psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as her MS in counselor education from the Pennsylvania State University, Cini began her career in higher education teaching adult students. She later administered programs for adults at Duquesne University, followed by roles at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, New Jersey, and more recently as associate vice president for Academic Affairs and interim dean of the School of Management at City University of Seattle where she realigned online operations and developed new models of curriculum development

Updated: 08-31-2017