Mahauganee Shaw
Senior Consultant
Mahauganee.Shaw@academicsearch.org
Dr. Mahauganee Shaw is a nationally recognized researcher whose unparalleled analytical skills are an excellent asset in her work as a senior consultant. With her breadth of experience as a student affairs administrator and graduate faculty member, Dr. Shaw can be counted on to succeed in every search she performs.
Additionally, Dr. Shaw has proven herself in high-pressure and unprecedented situations. A year after she received her master’s degree in educational administration from the University of Kansas City-Missouri, Dr. Shaw was named assistant dean and director in the Office of Student Engagement and Leadership Development at Dillard University. In her second year on the job, Hurricane Katrina devastated the New Orleans campus. Dr. Shaw and the rest of the Dillard administration were responsible for the arduous task of not only the immediate recovery efforts, but assembling a plan to move forward once the city began to reemerge. Dr. Shaw soon realized that research and guidance in emergency management, particularly in the aftermath of a catastrophic natural disaster, was lacking. So, she set out on her mission to change that.
Dr. Shaw earned her doctorate in higher education and student affairs from Indiana University. While there, she worked in the revered Center for Postsecondary Research, helping to administer and report on various annual surveys, including the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement (FSSE) and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE). After her experience at Dillard, and in light of tragic events on college campuses since 2005, Dr. Shaw dedicated her research to understanding the most effective ways for higher education institutions to prepare for and recover from crises. She has developed and instructed coursework in this area, led professional development workshops, and disseminated her research findings through keynote addresses, publications, and presentations. In 2022, she published a book on campus-based memorialization of tragic events.
Before joining Academic Search in 2018, Dr. Shaw was in a tenure-track position within the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University (OH). She was also a social science research fellow at Georgia Institute of Technology. With the virtual learning environment becoming more common, Dr. Shaw remains actively engaged by instructing graduate-level coursework and guest lecturing across the country.
As a Senior Consultant, Dr. Shaw’s brilliance as a researcher allows her to study the institution’s data, carefully analyze the position and the search committee’s requests, and recruit candidates who will prosper. In addition, with her experience in student affairs and interactions with higher education administrations over the years, Dr. Shaw’s deep understanding of student needs and university governance is exceptional. She’s performed searches at all levels of an executive staff, including multiple presidential searches.
