Maria LaMonaca Wisdom Promoted to Assistant Vice Provost

The Office for Faculty Advancement and The Graduate School announce the promotion of Maria LaMonaca Wisdom, formerly OFA’s director of faculty mentoring and coaching programs, to assistant vice provost, effective July 1. She will hold appointments in OFA and in The Graduate School.

Since 2021, Wisdom has worked with the OFA team to establish a university-wide coaching program for Duke faculty, which to date has served close to 300 Duke faculty and campus leaders. She has also drawn on her coaching work and her previous role as a graduate student advisor and co-director (with Edward Balleisen) of the NEH-funded Versatile Humanists at Duke program (2016-2019) to develop resources and best practices for graduate faculty mentors. Much of this work will appear in her book, “How to Mentor Anyone in Academia,” forthcoming from Princeton University Press in March 2025.

As assistant vice provost, Wisdom will continue to lead the development of coaching resources for faculty and extend OFA’s program offerings to further support the unique needs of both mid-career and late-career stage faculty. She will also work closely with The Graduate School to create a comprehensive suite of mentoring resources for Duke graduate faculty across disciplines, including evidence-based trainings and ongoing communities of practice.

In this new role, Wisdom looks forward to collaborating with academic leaders across Duke to strengthen unique cultures of mentorship and coaching within their units.