Meet the President

Ginsberg has enjoyed a more than 40-year career as a psychologist, educator, researcher and senior executive. Prior to his appointment at TU, he spent nearly 14 years at George Mason University, where he served as the dean of the College of Education and Human Development from 2010-20 and the provost and executive vice president from 2020-23.

As the chief academic officer at GMU, Ginsberg oversaw programming of the largest public research university in Virginia and one of the nation’s 146 Carnegie R1 institutions, a classification awarded to universities with the highest levels of research activity. 

Prior to joining Mason, Ginsberg served as the executive director and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) from 1999-2010. In addition, Ginsberg spent more than 20 years on the full-time and part-time faculty at The Johns Hopkins University in both the School of Medicine and the School of Education, including serving as the chair of the academic Department of Counseling and Human Services.

“ It is the greatest honor of my life to have joined Towson University and to serve as its 15th president. Together, I know we will make a great university even greater. ”

Other previous employment has included the position of executive director of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) from 1986-93; a senior member of the leadership of the American Psychological Association (APA) from 1981-86; and a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at the University of Rochester.  

Ginsberg currently serves as a volunteer board member with multiple non-profit organizations. He is the chair of the Board of Directors of Parents as Teachers (PAT), one of the most respected international organizations in education. PAT is an early childhood development program that provides research-based home visiting services supporting families to parent their children who are healthy, learning and ready for school. For more than a decade, he has served as a member of the international advisory board for the Early Years Organization of Northern Ireland.

He also serves on the Board of Directors of Hopecam, a national non-profit organization that supports children with cancer and their families; and was an appointed member of the Fairfax County (VA) Successful Children and Youth Policy Team.

“ I’m excited to see how President Ginsberg's collaborative leadership shapes TU's next chapter and accelerates achievement of the goals that all of the university holds close. ”

Ginsberg is a past-chair of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) and had served as a member of the Executive Committee and Board of Directors of both the Association of Chief Academic Officers (ACAO), the national association of university provosts, and the Council of Academic Deans of Research Education Institutions (CADREI). He also has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Virginia Early Childhood Foundation (VECF).

In addition, he is past-president of both the International Step by Step Association (ISSA), a nongovernmental organization of education and child/youth development focused NGOs in Europe and Central Asia, and the Society of Psychologists in Leadership (SPIL).

Ginsberg is a fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Maryland Psychological Association (MPA), and a clinical member and fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT). He is a licensed psychologist in Maryland. 

Ginsberg completed his master's degree in 1978 and his doctoral degree in 1981 at The Pennsylvania State University, after earning his bachelor's degree from the State University of New York at Cortland in 1975.

He also completed an APA-accredited internship in clinical psychology while a fellow at the Yale University School of Medicine. In 2006, he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters by the State University of New York.  

Ginsberg has been married to Elaine A. Anderson for more than 45 years. She is the former chair and currently professor emerita at the University of Maryland’s Department of Family Science in the School of Public Health. They have two adult children, Andrew, who completed his doctoral degree in Kinesiology at the University of Maryland, and Robert, who completed his MBA at University of Maryland and is an executive at Xylem, a Fortune 500 corporation.