Leisenring, Amy
Associate Dean of Inclusive Student Success, College of Graduate Studies
Preferred: amy.leisenring@sjsu.edu
Telephone
Preferred: (408) 924-5756
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy, Sociology, University Of Colorado, 2004
- Master of Arts, Sociology, New Mexico State University, 1998
- Bachelor of Arts, Sociology, Miami University of Ohio, 1994
Bio
Dr. Amy Leisenring became Associate Dean of Inclusive Student Success for the College of Graduate Studies in March 2020. She has been deeply committed to both undergraduate and graduate student success since joining SJSU in 2005. Prior to becoming Associate Dean of ISS for the College of Graduate Studies, she was a professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences. Dr. Leisenring served as Graduate Coordinator for the M.A. Program in Sociology from 2013-2017 and as Associate Chair of the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences from 2015-2016. She also served as the Faculty Director for ACCESS, the advising and success center for the College of Social Sciences, from 2016 to 2020.
Dr. Leisenring's early research was in the areas of violence and victimization, focusing particularly on the experiences of women who have experienced intimate partner violence and the criminal justice system response to domestic violence. Her more recent scholarship has been in the area of the sociology of higher education and student success, with a focus on race, gender, and class-based inequalities and the way that they shape students’ experiences. She has conducted all of her research using an interpretive lens, meaning that she is interested in exploring the ways in which people draw from social discourses in their attempts to construct their social identities and make meaning of their experiences. She has taught undergraduate courses on topics including family, family violence, and motherhood, and undergraduate and graduate courses in both qualitative research methods and the sociology of gender.
Dr. Leisenring received her B.A. in Sociology from Miami University of Ohio (1994), her M.A. in Sociology from New Mexico State University (1998), and her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Colorado (2004), where she also received certification in Women's Studies and Graduate Teacher Training.