Judy Pryor-Ramirez
Clinical Associate Professor of Public Service; Director of Executive Master of Public Administration Program
As a practitioner-scholar at Wagner, Professor Judy Pryor-Ramirez teaches courses on management and leadership, leadership for social transformation, and community-based participatory action research. She also directs the Executive MPA program for mid-career leaders who want to make a lasting impact on the public good, chairs the faculty committee on Inclusion, Diversity, Belonging, Equity, and Access, and advises the Association of Latinx Students and Allies in Public Service (ALAS). In 2023, she received Wagner's Professor of the Year award.
Pryor-Ramirez is a member of the university-wide Community Engaged Scholarship Taskforce and The Latinx Project, a network of faculty committed to interdisciplinary Latinx Studies. During academic year 2024-25, she is a Senior Fellow at the University of Richmond Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. Since 2022, she has been a member of the Research Advisory Council at the Partnership for Public Service.
An interdisciplinary sociologist, Pryor-Ramirez draws inspiration from scholars such as bell hooks, Gloria Anzaldúa, Ruth Wilson Gilmore, and Stuart Hall, among others, who encourage the exploration of power and social and institutional arrangements in the pursuit of justice, which informs her teaching and research. Pryor-Ramirez is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Education, Teachers College, where she completed an M.A. in sociology and education. She has also completed training from Rockwood Leadership Institute, Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and the Public Science Project's Critical Participatory Action Research Summer Institute.
As a writer, she has contributed essays on feminism and teaching to publications such as Intervenxions, the Journal of Public Affairs Education, The New Historia, and Public Seminar. Professor Pryor-Ramirez’s forthcoming book chapter about a participatory data collection method inspired by the Free Southern Theater's story circle practice is scheduled for publication in an edited volume by Manchester University Press in 2025.
To learn more, visit judypryorramirez.com.
Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries. In class, we will engage in a collective analysis of specific problems that leaders and managers face—first, diagnosing them and then, identifying solutions—to explore how organizations can meet and exceed their performance objectives. As part of that process, you will encounter a variety of practical and essential topics and tools, including mission, strategy, goals, structure, teams, diversity and inclusion, motivation, and negotiation.
This course is appropriate for students interested in the role that leadership plays in advancing social innovation and social change in the context of democratic governance.
The course explores the role of leadership in organizational efforts to change thinking, systems, and policies—taking into consideration the contested process by which the responsibility of addressing intractable problems is distributed among key diverse actors in a shared-power world. Traditional approaches to leadership defined by single heroic individuals who influence followers are contrasted with new perspectives—consistent with the demands of today’s complex problems—particularly when we aspire to inclusive, transparent and democratic solutions. Emergent perspectives reveal leadership as the collective achievement of members of a group who share a vision, and who must navigate the constellation of relationships, structures, processes and institutional dynamics within the larger system in which they are embedded.
The course will focus primarily on the organizational level of action, but connections to the individual and policy levels will also be explored. An opportunity to apply course concepts in the context of a particular organization of the student’s choice (with instructor approval) will deepen and personalize the student’s understanding of the interconnections between the three levels of action, and challenge assumptions about leadership and social change and their implications for practice.
This is an introductory course for students who want to better understand theories, principles, and methods of community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), which is research done with communities and community partners. CBPAR is a means for community planning and organizing to address local issues and social needs that center individuals and communities directly impacted. This course focuses on how researchers and community members collaborate to conduct research that leads to community change and the improvement of community-identified needs as well as scholarly debates, and practical and methodological issues in the application of CBPAR.
This course addresses the macro and micro effects of gender in the workplace, from the complicated reasons for the lack of representation of women in senior leadership across sectors to the dynamics of individuals of various genders working together. The landscape of the workplace has changed dramatically over the last few decades, and with a shift towards a more diverse and global workforce, understanding the intersection of work dynamics and gender is critical. In addition, this course will explore the important intersections between gender and other demographic characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age. Finally, the course will uncover strategies and examples of how to create more diverse and inclusive work environments.
This is an introductory course for students who want to better understand theories, principles, and methods of community-based participatory action research (CBPAR), which is research done with communities and community partners. CBPAR is a means for community planning and organizing to address local issues and social needs that center individuals and communities directly impacted. This course focuses on how researchers and community members collaborate to conduct research that leads to community change and the improvement of community-identified needs as well as scholarly debates, and practical and methodological issues in the application of CBPAR.
Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries. In class, we will engage in a collective analysis of specific problems that leaders and managers face—first, diagnosing them and then, identifying solutions—to explore how organizations can meet and exceed their performance objectives. As part of that process, you will encounter a variety of practical and essential topics and tools, including mission, strategy, goals, structure, teams, diversity and inclusion, motivation, and negotiation.
Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries. In class, we will engage in a collective analysis of specific problems that leaders and managers face—first, diagnosing them and then, identifying solutions—to explore how organizations can meet and exceed their performance objectives. As part of that process, you will encounter a variety of practical and essential topics and tools, including mission, strategy, goals, structure, teams, diversity and inclusion, motivation, and negotiation.
This course is appropriate for students interested in the role that leadership plays in advancing social innovation and social change in the context of democratic governance.
The course explores the role of leadership in organizational efforts to change thinking, systems, and policies—taking into consideration the contested process by which the responsibility of addressing intractable problems is distributed among key diverse actors in a shared-power world. Traditional approaches to leadership defined by single heroic individuals who influence followers are contrasted with new perspectives—consistent with the demands of today’s complex problems—particularly when we aspire to inclusive, transparent and democratic solutions. Emergent perspectives reveal leadership as the collective achievement of members of a group who share a vision, and who must navigate the constellation of relationships, structures, processes and institutional dynamics within the larger system in which they are embedded.
The course will focus primarily on the organizational level of action, but connections to the individual and policy levels will also be explored. An opportunity to apply course concepts in the context of a particular organization of the student’s choice (with instructor approval) will deepen and personalize the student’s understanding of the interconnections between the three levels of action, and challenge assumptions about leadership and social change and their implications for practice.
This course addresses the macro and micro effects of gender in the workplace, from the complicated reasons for the lack of representation of women in senior leadership across sectors to the dynamics of individuals of various genders working together. The landscape of the workplace has changed dramatically over the last few decades, and with a shift towards a more diverse and global workforce, understanding the intersection of work dynamics and gender is critical. In addition, this course will explore the important intersections between gender and other demographic characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age. Finally, the course will uncover strategies and examples of how to create more diverse and inclusive work environments.
Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries. In class, we will engage in a collective analysis of specific problems that leaders and managers face—first, diagnosing them and then, identifying solutions—to explore how organizations can meet and exceed their performance objectives. As part of that process, you will encounter a variety of practical and essential topics and tools, including mission, strategy, goals, structure, teams, diversity and inclusion, motivation, and negotiation.
Management and Leadership is designed to empower you with the skills you will need to make meaningful change in the world—whether you care about bike lanes, criminal justice, prenatal care, community development, urban planning, social investment, or something else. Whatever your passion, you can have an impact by leading and managing. In this course, you will enhance the technical, interpersonal, conceptual, and political skills needed to run effective and efficient organizations embedded in diverse communities, policy arenas, sectors, and industries. In class, we will engage in a collective analysis of specific problems that leaders and managers face—first, diagnosing them and then, identifying solutions—to explore how organizations can meet and exceed their performance objectives. As part of that process, you will encounter a variety of practical and essential topics and tools, including mission, strategy, goals, structure, teams, diversity and inclusion, motivation, and negotiation.
This course is appropriate for students interested in the role that leadership plays in advancing social innovation and social change in the context of democratic governance.
The course explores the role of leadership in organizational efforts to change thinking, systems, and policies—taking into consideration the contested process by which the responsibility of addressing intractable problems is distributed among key diverse actors in a shared-power world. Traditional approaches to leadership defined by single heroic individuals who influence followers are contrasted with new perspectives—consistent with the demands of today’s complex problems—particularly when we aspire to inclusive, transparent and democratic solutions. Emergent perspectives reveal leadership as the collective achievement of members of a group who share a vision, and who must navigate the constellation of relationships, structures, processes and institutional dynamics within the larger system in which they are embedded.
The course will focus primarily on the organizational level of action, but connections to the individual and policy levels will also be explored. An opportunity to apply course concepts in the context of a particular organization of the student’s choice (with instructor approval) will deepen and personalize the student’s understanding of the interconnections between the three levels of action, and challenge assumptions about leadership and social change and their implications for practice.