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Kim Schatzel
//November 3, 2022
Kim Schatzel, Ph.D.
President
Towson Unversity
A 1978 graduate of Washington University, where she majored in economics and biology, Kim Schatzel worked in private business for years before earning her Ph.D. in Business Administration from Michigan State University in 1999 and pivoting to the academic world.
After a stint as a professor of marketing at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, she became an administrator at the school and then, in 2016, president of Towson University.
During the pandemic, Schatzel said, “my leadership philosophy in managing through change was to overcommunicate. We emphasized our focus on our people and our mission centered around student success.”
In such times, she added, “you need an outstanding team, and one that works together and trusts one another. Everything else in difficult times is built from that foundation.”
Schatzel serves on numerous boards, including the Maryland Business Roundtable for Education, the CollegeBound Foundation and the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center.
She has received numerous awards and honors, including the Whitney M. Young Jr. Award from the Urban League Board of Directors, the Champion for More in the Middle from the Associated Black Charities and nearly a dozen from The Daily Record.
Asked about competitiveness and innovation, Schatzel said persistence is crucial when implementing innovative ideas or programs.
“It also takes collaboration – you need to build partnerships with others,” she said. “But the most important part of it is the persistence to see your vision through. Because so often, innovation doesn’t take days. It takes months and years to make big change.”
