Saundra McGuire
Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire is the Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana where she formerly held the positions of Assistant Vice Chancellor and Professor of Chemistry. Prior to joining LSU in August 1999, she spent eleven years at Cornell University, where she received the coveted Clark Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. McGuire has been teaching chemistry, working in the area of learning and teaching support, and mentoring students for over 40 years. She has delivered keynote addresses or presented her widely acclaimed student success and faculty development workshops at over 200 institutions in 41 states and six countries. Additionally, she has published her work in The Journal of Chemical Education, American Scientist, Science, The Learning Assistance Review, To Improve the Academy, and New Directions for Teaching and Learning. Her latest book, Teach Students How to Learn: Strategies You Can Incorporate into Any Course to Improve Student Metacognition, Study Skills, and Motivation, was released by Stylus Publications in October 2015.She has received numerous awards for her work in improving student learning and mentoring students, the most recent of which is the 2015 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Lifetime Mentor Award. In 2014 she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE). In 2012 she was elected a fellow of The Council of Learning Assistance and Developmental Education Associations (CLADEA), and in 2011 she was elected a Fellow of AAAS. In 2010, she was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society, and also became one of only seven individuals in the nation at that time to have achieved Level Four Lifetime Learning Center Leadership Certification through the National College Learning Center Association (NCLCA). In November 2007 the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) was presented to her in a White House Oval Office Ceremony.
Dr. McGuire received her B.S. degree, magna cum laude, from Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA, where she was named a Department of Chemistry Distinguished Alumna in 2008. She earned her Master’s degree from Cornell University and her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she received the Chancellor’s Citation for Exceptional Professional Promise. She is married to Dr. Stephen C. McGuire, a professor of physics at Southern University. They are the parents of Dr. Carla McGuire Davis and Dr. Stephanie McGuire, and the doting grandparents of Joshua, Ruth, Daniel, and Joseph Davis.
