Nancy Franklin

Dr. Franklin is a Principal of Franklin Solutions and consults with leaders of higher education, government, and community on strategic initiatives, planning, innovation, and change agendas. She has been engaged with higher education-community partnerships associated with regional development and community-building; has obtained funding for and managed several economic and workforce development initiatives; has been on the forefront of technology-enabled faculty development; has managed multi-institution partnerships; and has led strategic planning efforts and implementation teams.

Previously Dr. Franklin led strategic initiatives at Virginia Tech, Penn State, and Indiana State University, subsequent to early-career private sector marketing experience with IBM and ROLM. She has more than 20 years of experience in institution-scale university-community engagement. She co-founded a unique institution centered on regional economic transformation in Danville, Virginia, the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR), which was recognized with numerous regional and national awards. At Penn State, she founded the Sustainable Communities Collaborative (SCC), a partnering infrastructure supporting institution-wide student engagement with community-identified sustainability challenges.

Dr. Franklin has been active in several national networks focused on public engagement, including the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness, and Economic Prosperity and Council on Engagement and Outreach, the Engagement Scholarship Consortium, Transformative Regional Engagement Networks, and the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship. She has researched and written about large-scale, transformative university engagement in regional contexts, agile collaboration, distance education, and is the author of more than a dozen publications.

Nancy holds a bachelor’s degree in education from Bucknell University, a master’s degree in higher education administration from Virginia Tech, and a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania.

Nancy has been a Unitarian Universalist since 1987 when she joined the San Mateo, CA UU church. Subsequently, she’s been a member of Unitarian churches in Blacksburg, VA; Terre Haute, IN; Greensboro, NC; Centre County, PA; and Montclair, NJ, and Asheville, NC. Over the years she has served on and/or led many committees, including the Religious Education committee, Sunday Service committee, Building committee, and Strategic Planning committee. Nancy has also belonged to Circle Supper groups and Covenant groups and has completed the Harvest the Power leadership development program.