Faculty Q&A: Linda Eisenmann, EdD
An accomplished higher education historian and administrator, Professor Linda Eisenmann is a founding faculty member and previous director of the Higher Education Program at UMass Boston. She has held leadership roles at John Carroll University as well as Wheaton College, where she served as provost for several years and went on to become a professor emeritus of education and history. As a scholar, Eisenmann is the author of three books and many articles focused on the history of women and gender in higher education. She returned to UMass Boston in 2025, and now teaches higher education policy and history in the doctoral program that she helped launch more than 30 years ago.
Q: What inspired you to become a historian, administrator, and professor of higher education?
A: When I was a senior at Connecticut College, I was invited to be the student representative on a strategic plan. I loved this experience, so I started to ask people, “How do you get involved in a career in higher education?” At my first professional job, in career counseling at Georgetown University, I pulled the Harvard Graduate School of Education catalog off the shelf and started looking through it. I had no idea you could study the economics of education, the history of education, educational policy... and I got hooked. I really liked this idea of studying higher education from those perspectives.
Q: What brought you back to UMass Boston last year?
A: I had just retired from full-time teaching, but I wasn’t really ready to be finished. Later that fall, I was invited to teach a policy course part time, but also give it a historical perspective. What could be better? Coming back gave me the opportunity to do some history again, return to a program that I love and respect, and reconnect with UMass Boston. I have so enjoyed being back. There’s something special about the way UMass Boston faculty and staff reach out to one another and go the extra mile.
Q: As a higher education historian and scholar how do you view the role of institutions like UMass Boston in our culture and country?
A: As a first-generation college student, I understand what schools like UMass Boston mean in their communities. My two older brothers were the first in our family to go to college. They went to Cleveland State University, which was started with a similar mission right around the same time as UMass Boston. Urban public universities begin with quality undergraduate programs, and allow you to build master’s programs and doctoral programs as strong as those at any institution.
Q: What’s been the most gratifying part of your career so far?
A: After I stepped down from the provost job, I decided I really want to continue teaching because it makes such a difference in my life and to my students, and it allows me to continue to be a scholar. Teaching and research feed each other. Every time I come up with an idea, I want to present it to my students. Or my students raise something that causes me to go investigate. Teaching inspires me to keep my research life active.
Q: You recently endowed a fund at UMass Boston that’s dedicated to supporting the Junior Faculty Research Seminar, a career development program for pre-tenured faculty. What inspired you to make this investment in early-career faculty members?
A: I know UMass Boston is a place where my money can make a difference. After I returned, I noticed an email inviting early career, pre-tenured faculty to apply for the Junior Faculty Research Seminar and thought, “This! This is what’s important!” UMass is allowing these faculty to come together—they’re building a cohort and supporting not only their research and teaching, but also their career development. The program is a real match to what’s important to me.
Q: What areas of research currently interest you most?
A: I’m interested in exploring to what extent college is a public or private good from an economics perspective. I’ve actually had my students debate this in class. They take themselves back to the revolutionary time—they’re Jeffersonians or Hamiltonians—and they argue this: Is college a public or private good? For whom is college good? Is it equally good for everybody?
Q: What hopes or advice do you have for the next generation of higher education teachers, administrators, and historians?
A: I take heart in what I see in my students, all of whom are administrators or faculty. They are not giving up on the issues of access and equity. For historians, I hope we continue to ask deeper questions of stories we thought we knew around race, around gender. One we’re digging into more is, “Where were LGBTQ faculty and staff?” They were certainly there in the ’70s, the ’80s, and even earlier. We’re starting to find their histories now.