After four years of dedicated service as the Parents as Teachers board chair and many more years as a board member, Patricia Kempthorne, founder of the Twiga Foundation, Inc., – a non-profit committed to educating organizations about work-life fit, flexibility, and effectiveness for working parents – hands over the board leadership role.
Parents as Teachers has appointed Dr. Mark R. Ginsberg, provost, and executive vice president at George Mason University, as chairman of its Board of Directors.
Dr. Ginsberg joined the Parents as Teachers board in 2013 and most recently served as its vice-chair. He succeeds Patricia Kempthorne, former First Lady of Idaho.
The PAT board of directors sets the organization’s strategic planning and policies, which are monitored and evaluated to ensure growth, expansion, and responsiveness to key trends in the ever-changing economy and emerging demographic shifts of families and their young children.
“It has been a great privilege to have served as chairperson of the Parents as Teachers Board of Directors,” said Kempthorne. “I am incredibly proud of our accomplishments over the past four years. We have helped countless parents with effective parenting skills, connected families to community resources, and helped them become their children’s first and best teachers. I am confident in our future and Mark’s leadership as we continue to grow and expand our impact.”
Dr. Ginsberg joined George Mason, the largest public research university in Virginia and a Carnegie Research One (R1) institution with more than 38,000 students in 2010 as the dean of the College of Education and Human Development. His career spans more than 40 years as a professor, psychologist, and skilled administrator. He has been published extensively in the areas of education, psychology, human development, and human services.
“I am deeply honored to have been appointed as the chairman of the Parents as Teachers Board of Directors,” said Dr. Ginsberg. “I look forward to continuing to leverage our strategic network of affiliates, foundations, not-for-profits, and legislators who – along with our team – are all united in the desire to help strengthen families around the world. I also look forward to working closely with Patricia Kempthorne, our inspirational President and CEO Constance Gully, and our experienced Board of Directors to fulfill Parents as Teachers’ mission.”
Dr. Ginsberg has lectured and presented at more than 200 conferences, seminars, and other educational meetings and professional development events, both within the United States and internationally. He has served as executive director of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC); was chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services in the Graduate Division of Education at Johns Hopkins University, and a member of the faculty of both the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Department of Medicine in the School of Medicine.
Parents as Teachers President and CEO Constance Gully said Dr. Ginsberg brings a strategic vision to his new role as board chair. “This is a significant moment in the history of our organization,” said Gully. “I’m deeply grateful to Mark for his vision, dedication, and passion for helping us build one of the most impactful and significant non-profits serving vulnerable children and families. I am equally gratified for the exceptional leadership that Patricia provided during her tenure as board chair, and excited for what the future holds under Mark’s leadership.”
Before joining Johns Hopkins, Dr. Ginsberg was the executive director, clinical member, and fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy in Washington D.C., and a senior member of the management staff of the American Psychological Association, after having been a faculty member at the University of Rochester.
In addition to chairing the Parents as Teachers board, Dr. Ginsberg serves on the Board of Hopecam, a non-profit organization that supports children with cancer and their families. He is a past board chair of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, was a member of the executive committee of the Council of Academic Deans of Research Education Institutions and was a board member at the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation.
He also is a past president of the International Step by Step Association, a non-governmental organization of 30 education-focused NGOs in Europe and Central Asia, and the Society of Psychologists in Management. Dr. Ginsberg is a Fellow of both the American and Maryland Psychological Associations and a member of the American Counseling Association, American Educational Research Association, and American Society of Association Executives, of which he was elected to serve on the national Board of Directors.
He completed his master’s degree in 1978 and his doctoral degree in 1981 at Pennsylvania State University. He also completed a Fellowship in Clinical Psychology at the Yale University School of Medicine. In 2006, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from the State University of New York.
He is married to Elaine A. Anderson, the former chair, and a professor emerita in the Department of Family Science in the School of Public Health at the University of Maryland. They have two adult children, Andrew, a faculty member in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of Maryland, and Robert, an executive at Fundrise, a Washington, D.C.-based financial technology company.