Meet the President

Mark R. Ginsberg was named the 15th president of Towson University in August 2023. He began his tenure on October 30. 

Ginsberg has enjoyed a more than 40-year career as a psychologist, educator and senior administrator in academia. Prior to his appointment at TU, he spent 13 years at George Mason University, where he served as the dean of the College of Education and Human Development from 2010-20 and the provost and executive vice president from 2020-23. As the chief academic officer at GMU, Ginsberg oversaw the largest public university in Virginia and one of the nation’s 146 Carnegie R1 institutions, a classification awarded to universities with the highest levels of research activity. 

From 1999-2010, Ginsberg served as the executive director and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). In addition, Ginsberg spent more than 20 years on the full-time and part-time faculty at The Johns Hopkins University in both the School of Medicine and the School of Education, including serving as the chair of the academic Department of Counseling and Human Services.

Before joining JHU, Ginsberg held the position of executive director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) from 1986-93. From 1981-86, he was a senior member of the leadership of the American Psychological Association (APA) after having been a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester.  

Currently, Ginsberg serves as a volunteer leader with multiple non-profit organizations. He is the chair of the Board of Directors of Parents as Teachers (PAT), one of the most respected international organizations in education. PAT is an early childhood development program that provides research-based home visiting services supporting families to raise children who are healthy, learning and ready for school. He also serves on the executive board and board of directors of the Association of Chief Academic Officers (ACAO), the national organization of university provosts; as well as Hopecam, a non-profit organization that supports children with cancer and their families; and was an appointed member of the Fairfax County (VA) Successful Children and Youth Policy Team.

He is a past-chair of the board of directors of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and had served as a member of the executive committee of the Council of Academic Deans of Research Education Institutions (CADREI), as well as the board of directors of the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF). He also is a past-president of both the International Step by Step Association (ISSA), a nongovernmental organization of education and child/youth development focused NGOs in Europe and Central Asia; and the Society of Psychologists in Leadership (SPIL). For more than a decade, he has served as a member of the international advisory board for the Early Years Organization of Northern Ireland. 

In addition, Ginsberg is a fellow of both the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Maryland Psychological Association (MPA), and a clinical member and fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). He is a licensed psychologist in Maryland. 

Ginsberg has published in the areas of education, psychology, human development and human services. He has lectured and presented at over 200 conferences, seminars and other educational meetings and professional development events, both within the United States and internationally.  

Ginsberg completed his master's degree in 1978 and his doctoral degree in 1981 at The Pennsylvania State University, after having been awarded a bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Cortland in 1975. 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 by the State University of New York.  

He has been married to Elaine A. Anderson for more than 40 years. She is the former chair and currently is 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 Xylem, a Fortune 500 corporation.