Dr. Noah D. Drezner is a Professor of Higher Education in the Higher and Postsecondary Education Program.
Educational and Professional History
Dr. Drezner holds his Bachelor of Science from the University of Rochester, a graduate certificate in non-profit leadership from Roberts Wesleyan College, and his Master of Science in Education and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
Prior to returning to graduate school, Dr. Drezner was an advancement officer at the University of Rochester, where he gained the practitioner experience that informs his research. Most recently, he was an Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of Maryland. While there he was instrumental in the establishment of the Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Maryland’s School of Public Policy, where he continues to hold an affiliate appointment as Senior Research Fellow. In 2011, Noah was named one of 13 university professors to the inaugural cohort of Honors College faculty.
Research Interests
His research interests include philanthropy and fundraising as they pertain to colleges and universities, including higher education's role in the cultivation of prosocial behaviors. Currently, Dr. Drezner is researching how a person’s social identities affect their giving to higher education and how colleges and universities can engage their alumni in more inclusive ways. He is the co-PI for the National Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Alumni, a multi-institutional mixed methods project, and recently completed a population-based survey experiment that evaluates how a person’s social identities affect their propensity to donate and at what level when exposed to different types of fundraising solicitations.
Dr. Drezner has published numerous articles and given several presentations on related topics. His dissertation, Cultivating a Culture of Giving: An Exploration of Institutional Strategies to Enhance African American Young Alumni Giving, was recognized in 2009 with the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) H.S. Warwick Award for Outstanding Research in Alumni Relations for Educational Advancement. Additionally, Noah is an associate editor of Philanthropy, Fundraising, and Volunteerism in Higher Education (2007) which was named the 2009 CASE John Grenzebach Award for Outstanding Research in Philanthropy for Educational Advancement. His book Philanthropy and Fundraising in American Higher Education has been adopted in master's and doctoral programs across the country. In November 2011, his book Race, Gender, and Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations explored the intersection of identity in leading nonprofits. Most recently, Drezner edited a volume Expanding the Donor Base in Higher Education: Engaging Non-Traditional Donors (2013) to wide acclaim, including wining the Association of Fundraising Professional’s (AFP) 2014 Skystone Partners Prize for Research on Fundraising and Philanthropy. Drezner was named the inaugural AFP Early Career Emerging Scholar in 2014.