The Center for Wisdom’s Women is pleased to announce the selection of its new Executive Director, Susan Kingsland, Ph.D. Kingsland brings over thirty years of nonprofit experience centered on working with individuals who have been at risk of adverse life experiences, often since infancy, and helping them thrive. She has ample experience with grant-writing and management, organizational development, financial and program oversight. Kingsland is replacing Klara Tammany, who is retiring after twelve years of leadership. “We are thrilled to have Susan as our next leader, “ said Kate Marble, The CW’s board chair. “She brings the skills, experience and most important, the heart necessary to lead the Center.” As the Executive Director, Kingsland will oversee an organization dedicated to women helping women thrive. The organization includes a drop-in Center in the heart of downtown Lewiston, Herban Works (a social enterprise) and the newly opened Sophia’s House, a residential recovery program for women.
Prior to this position, Susan has been the Director of Training, Volunteer Recruitment of Seed of independence in Bath, Maine. She also worked at the Director of Child and Family Services of what is now Midcoast Maine Community Action. She is a graduate of Wheaton College and double majored in Sociology and Education. She continued with her Masters and PhD to develop a love for and life-long learning of the human condition, with a particular focus on those who live in poverty. In her graduate years at the University of New Hampshire Susan studied homelessness and wrote her first professional paper, accepted into the University of Toronto Ethnographical Forum, “The Student and the Street Folk.” In that work she performed field research on the lives of the homeless and noted the surprising prevalence of young children living in those conditions. This was something yet to be understood or recognized in the early 1980s. Susan’s post- doctoral work drew her closer to understanding the lives of families, predominantly women and children, living in poverty. She introduced the first Sociology of Childhood course in Maine and continued to develop this research in her professional work. To that end Susan co-founded KIDS Consortium (Kids Involved Doing Service) in the 1990s. She has published and served as keynote speaker on various issues that face children and families in the lowest socio-economic stratum of the United States, with special focus on building resilience.
Susan has received many honors including Phi Beta Kappa, the Paul F Cressey Prize in sociology, the University of New Hampshire Dissertation Scholar award for 2 consecutive years, as well as awards from Maine Humanities, Maine Criminal Justice, The Corporation for National and Community Service, the Maine Department of Education, The Department of Health and Human Services and the National Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Her greatest pride resides in being the mother of two very successful and compassionate women, Zoe and Samantha Eddy and having the wisdom to marry her high school sweetheart and life-long companion and friend, Mathew Eddy. Susan starts March 16, 2020.