School of Education

Brendan Maxcy is an Associate Professor of Urban Education Leadership and Policy in the Indiana University School of Education at IUPUI. He was Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development (2018-22), Associate Dean of Graduate Studies and Research (2017-18), Chair of Graduate and Professional Programs (2015-17), Coordinator Educational Leadership Programs (2011-2019), and Director of IUPUI’s Urban Principals Program (2010-2019). He was an Assistant and Associate Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia (2004-2009).

At IUPUI, Maxcy served as co-principal investigator for two federally funded projects:

• The Great Lakes Equity Center ($3.6 million, 2011-2016). One of ten equity assistance centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education, the center supported state and local education agencies in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin to ensure student access to and participation in high quality education regardless of race, sex, and national origin.
• The Community Self-Empowerment Program ($600,000, 2013-2016). Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, this program expanded the capacity of the Burmese Community Center for Education to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate supports for individuals and families displaced from Burma and resettling in Indiana.

Maxcy studies leader responses to education reform policies with particular attention to equity effects, leadership distribution, and political dynamics. In addition to work on US schooling, he studied leader responses to national educational reforms amid a violent regional insurgency in the border provinces of southern Thailand. The Politics of Education Association named his doctoral study of district and school governance the Outstanding Dissertation on the Politics of Education in 2006. In 2010, he received the Jack A. Culbertson Award given annually by the University Council for Educational Administration to the outstanding junior professor of educational administration in recognition of his contributions to the field.

He has authored and co-authored more than forty articles, book chapters, and reports and co-edited the 2010 Politics of Education Association yearbook on leadership and identity in multiple contexts. His work is published in Educational Administration Quarterly, Educational Management, Administration & Leadership, Educational Policy, The Peabody Journal of Education, Remedial and Special Education, and Urban Education. He has presented his work in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

An elected member of the Indiana University Faculty Council and IUPUI Faculty Council, Maxcy co-chairs the IFC Faculty Affairs committee. He served on the IFC Nomination, Graduate Affairs, Research Affairs, and Budgetary Affairs committees, and the Board of Review. He is an Associate Editor for the journal Engage! Co-created Knowledge in the City and Associate Director of the international Center for the Study of Leadership and Ethics in Education. He served on the executive boards of the Politics of Education Association and the Missouri Professors of Educational Administration. He has been an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, the Journal of School Leadership, and served on the editorial boards of Educational Administration Quarterly, Journal of School Leadership, and the Journal of Education (Thailand).

Prior to his work as a professor, Maxcy taught physics and chemistry in public and private schools in Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia from 1991 to 2000. He worked with court-referred adolescents for the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services from 1990 to 1991.

• PhD in Educational Administration, University of Texas at Austin, 2004
• MEd in Science Education, University of Texas at Austin, 1996
• BS in Education, University of Maine, 1990

• EDUC-Y 520: Strategies of Educational Inquiry
• EDUC-Y 521: Methodological Approaches in Education
• EDUC-A 653: The Organizational Context of Education
• EDUC-A 624 The Principalship
• EDUC-J 500: Curriculum in the Context of Learning
• EDUC-A 560: Perspectives on Educational Politics
• EDUC-A 695 Practicum in Educational Leadership
• EDUC-A 720 Workshop on Selected Problems in Educational Leadership

• Critical Leadership Studies
• Critical Policy Analysis
• Organizational Theory
• Politics of Education

• Jack A. Culbertson Early Career Award, University Council of Educational Administration, 2010
• Outstanding Dissertation in the Politics of Education, 2004-2006, Politics of Education Association, April, 2006.
• Outstanding Reviewer. Educational Administration Quarterly, 2006.
• David L. Clark Scholar, National Graduate Student Research Seminar hosted by the University of Educational Administration, 2004

• Nguyen, T.S.T., Maxcy, B.D., Mutraw, M.O., Plo, N., & Nar, Y.D. (2013). Burmese Community Center for Education: Community Self-Empowerment Program. Office of Refugee Resettlement, USDHHS. (Co-principal Investigator, $600,000 (2013-2016) awarded September, 2013).
• King Thorius, K., Maxcy, B.D., & Nguyen, T.S.T. (2011). Great Lakes Equity Center at Indiana University-Indianapolis. Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, USDOE. (Co-principal Investigator, $2.2 million (2011-2014) awarded August, 2011).
• Maxcy, B.D., Nguyen, T.S.T., & Scribner, J.P. University of Missouri Vietnam Fellows Collaborative Inquiry Project. SEAMEO ReTraC, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. (Primary Investigator: Memorandum of Understanding signed November 2009).
• Nitjarunkul, K., Maxcy, B.D., Atisabda, W. Sungtong, E., Placier, P. Grogan, M., Nguyen, T.S.T. (2007). Organizational Challenges for Educators in Southern Thai Primary Schools Responding to Educational Reform and Cultural Unrest. The Prince of Songkla University Research Council, Hat Yai, Thailand. (Co-Primary Investigator: Awarded November 2007).
• Maxcy, B.D. & Placier, P. (2006). Reconsidering and Renegotiating Institutional Position at an Elite Thai School, The University of Missouri-Columbia Research Council, Columbia, MO. (Primary Investigator: Awarded March 2, 2006).
• Maxcy, B.D. (2005). A study of responses of school officials to religious-ethnic violence and government reform in Thailand, The Dr. Richard Wallace Alumni Association Research Incentive Grants, Columbia, MO. (Primary Investigator: Awarded January 10, 2006).

• American Educational Research Association
• University Council for Educational Administration
• Politics of Education Association